Dear All Knowing: Why do license plates have to be replaced every eight years? -- Curious John
Dear John: License plates lose their reflective quality over time, a quality which is essential to law enforcement. And remember, drivers, that a license plate must be free of obstruction and visible.
Dear Mahatma: Who pays for the replacement of fencing along roadways after it is damaged? -- Joy
Dear Joy: The Arkansas Department of Transportation tells us that any time that a motorist causes damage to public property, the agency's legal department seeks reimbursement. As examples, if a motorist hits a roadside sign, a guardrail or a cable median barrier, the legal department begins proceedings to collect for that damage either from that driver's insurance company or from the motorist.
The department believes drivers must be responsible for damaging public property paid for by the taxpayers. Sounds fair to us.
All we can add is this must mean the legal department is mighty busy.
Dear Know-It-All (and that's a good thing): Do stop signs or other traffic signs located on private property such as shopping center parking lots carry the same weight of law as on public streets? -- Don't Know-It-All!
Dear Don't: No, because private property is, well, private and not public. We've been told so numerous times over the years by police agencies. A fender bender in a parking lot is a matter to be resolved by the drivers and their insurance companies. Our household has had this experience more than once, we regret to say.
By the way, we don't know it all, but we are pretty good at finding others who do. Sometimes this is called "journalism."
Dear Wizard of Traffic Oz: I read that in California, drivers routinely cruise through stop signs without coming to a complete stop -- the "California Roll." How witty! My wife and I see that in Little Rock. Drivers now cruise through red lights, especially on left turns at major intersections like Bowman Road and Chenal Parkway. I wonder if that's a trend across Arkansas, or might it be that Little Rock doesn't bother to enforce traffic laws any longer. What does the city administration have to say, I wonder? --Jim
Dear Jim: Every police agency says two things -- we enforce the living daylights out of traffic laws based on our available manpower, and please tell us where enforcement needs upgrading.
We asked Bill Henry, the city's chief traffic guy, how many traffic lights the city has operating. About 330, he said. Holy cow! we exclaimed. Now add all the stop signs, yield signs, speed limit signs, and all the rest. There aren't enough traffic cops in the world to ensure enforcement of them all.
Would we want that many traffic cops? Sounds downright totalitarian.
Drive defensively, but if a particular intersection is especially abused, call the Little Rock Police Department and ask for enforcement. Helpful numbers are 371-4829 and 371-4830.
Fjfellone@gmail.com
Metro on 01/27/2018