# Tree falls on car, 1 killed.



## hiclmbr (Aug 27, 2009)

This happened in my neck of the woods a couple weeks ago. Completely random and tragic.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5825923/


Wondering if this was a municipal tree and if any liability would be involved.


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## SLVRTRC (Aug 27, 2009)

friend of mine was driving through the woods by himself out at camp last year and a out of no where tree fell on his truck as he was cruising a long... messed up the truck but he was fine.


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## outofmytree (Aug 27, 2009)

Thats gotta be the worst kind of luck. I hope the others recover ASAP.

Funny thing is, there is a thread running atm where a HO asks if he is responsible for the damage caused by a big tree on his property if it falls outside the boundary line. He should read this thread.


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## lego1970 (Aug 27, 2009)

That's ashame. There was 4 large Cottonwoods up the street from my house that were dyeing back at a good rate and every time after a storm you would see big 8" diameter dead wood laying in the street. It was the HO responibility, but I wrote a letter to the city explaining that the cost to remove those trees would be at least $2000 a piece and I doubt the homeowner had that kind of money to have them removed (the house is not completely run down, but not in very good shape, some old people on fixed income live there). I explained that if the general public knew how hazardous those trees were, I'm sure the public would "OK" the use of tax money to have them removed. Sure enough the city of Blue Springs and or KCPL had Asplundh and a local tree company remove the trees, grind down the stumps and cleaned it up real nice. I thought it was cool that the city and power company listened and maybe saved somebody's life in the end.


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## wavefreak (Aug 28, 2009)

lego1970 said:


> That's ashame. There was 4 large Cottonwoods up the street from my house that were dyeing back at a good rate and every time after a storm you would see big 8" diameter dead wood laying in the street. It was the HO responibility, but I wrote a letter to the city explaining that the cost to remove those trees would be at least $2000 a piece and I doubt the homeowner had that kind of money to have them removed (the house is not completely run down, but not in very good shape, some old people on fixed income live there). I explained that if the general public knew how hazardous those trees were, I'm sure the public would "OK" the use of tax money to have them removed. Sure enough the city of Blue Springs and or KCPL had Asplundh and a local tree company remove the trees, grind down the stumps and cleaned it up real nice. I thought it was cool that the city and power company listened and maybe saved somebody's life in the end.




Every once in awhile government actually works. I think it's a trick to keep our hopes up.


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## outofmytree (Aug 28, 2009)

Lego nice story.

Wave i suspect you are right....


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## pdqdl (Aug 28, 2009)

Kansas City used to have a department called "Dangerous Trees". They would cite owners for allowing bad trees to exist, and would hire contractors (rarely) to get the bad ones removed.

Naturally, that program got dropped a quite a few years ago. The ordinances still exist, but there is no enforcement whatsoever.


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## lego1970 (Aug 28, 2009)

pdqdl said:


> Kansas City used to have a department called "Dangerous Trees". They would cite owners for allowing bad trees to exist, and would hire contractors (rarely) to get the bad ones removed.
> 
> Naturally, that program got dropped a quite a few years ago. The ordinances still exist, but there is no enforcement whatsoever.




Didn't know that. A guy could spend weeks just tagging hazardous trees around the KC metro. The cottonwoods I mentioned above were so bad that I wouldn't drive that way if it was windy. Parker tree, Asplundh and I think a rigger came out for the lower heavy chunks to take these ones down. I do a lot of my neighbors trees for free or other favors especially the folks with limited checkbooks but these cottonwoods were way to big and had to much dead wood in it for me to tackle. BTW the squirrel incident was on Harris rd between Greenwood and 50hwy. Just happen to drive by it today and the trees I topped actually look pretty good and the anchor points look fairly solid for being topped.


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## Dalmatian90 (Aug 28, 2009)

We have a stretch of state highway in our town.

At the firehouse we had photos of a fatal accident just like the one above from the late 70s. Just driving down the road on a nice, sunny day and boom...top of a white pine came down the roof.

Around 2000 we get toned out for a car vs. tree in the same area.

It was his lucky day -- the top of the pine landed on the hood of his VW Jetta. Destroyed the car, but he walked away. It was a diesel and the engine was still running and the transmission in drive -- and you couldn't reach the key or the shift due to the damage. I was the member-in-charge for quite a while till an officer got there, I saw one of more mechanically inclined firefighters and asked him to figure out how to shut down the engine 

Never did find out how he did it.


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