Spokane7
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December 19, 2011 in City
Getting There: Plow drivers want to keep rescuing slide-offs
Spokane County road crew workers want to keep pulling stranded motorists from snowy ditches despite fears by the county’s risk manager that the practice puts the county in jeopardy for possible claims or lawsuits.
“We are not emergency responders,” Risk Manager Steve Bartel told county commissioners last week.
“I cannot recommend that we engage in these activities as a risk manager,” he said.
Plow truck drivers have often pulled motorists from ditches along the many narrow county roads that can be treacherous when icy.
Commissioners acknowledged that the county’s drivers are resisting efforts to curtail their neighborly work. There may be times when someone’s life is in danger when stranded along the road, commissioners said.
During a briefing session, Bartel explained his reasoning. Drivers are not trained to pull people from ditches; the vehicles are not equipped like tow trucks; and the efforts to pull stuck vehicles back onto the road could create a hazard for other drivers, he said.
County trucks do not have winches, hooks, chains or cables suitable for such work, and they are powerful enough that they could cause damage to a smaller vehicle, Bartel said.
Plus, stopping to help a stranded motorist takes plow drivers away from the work of clearing the roads for the public. County employees could also face personal liability, he said.
Commissioners were not persuaded.
So Bartel pulled out a compromise.
He recommended that supervisors get involved in any decision to help and that the motorist getting the help be asked to sign a “hold harmless” waiver. Training for road crew workers is also a good idea, he said.
Commissioner Mark Richard said it was clear that road crew workers want to be able to help.
“We better find a way to protect them and allow them to do it,” he said.
More traveling this year
AAA is forecasting a 1.4 percent increase in the number of Americans traveling 50 miles or more from their homes during the coming holidays. A total of 91 million are expected to hit the roads, rails or skies.
It’s the highest number in five years, AAA said.
Automobiles will carry 83.6 million travelers, up 2.1 percent from last year. Air travel will fall 9.7 percent to 5.4 million.
Nationwide, the average cost of regular gasoline was $3.26 a gallon, compared with about $3.49 last week in Spokane.
Plan to make flying easier
Air travelers should remember the following tips:
• Do not include wrapped packages in checked or carry-on luggage. They will have to be examined.
• Make it quick for curbside drop-offs and pickups to help ease congestion. The driver must stay with the vehicle.
• Check flight status ahead of time and allow extra time.
• Label bags with name and address.
• Limit carry-on bags.
• Move promptly to ticket and security lines.
• Children need proof of age if under 12 and traveling alone or if 2 years or younger and being seated on a lap.
I-90 lanes open
Interstate 90 from Sullivan to Barker roads is now open to three lanes in each direction following widening work that began last spring.
The speed limit, however, is still 50 mph while finishing touches are completed. A portion of the eastbound shoulder is still closed.
Some additional work will be postponed until spring.
MLK Jr. Way opens Thursday 
polistra on December 19 at 3:39 a.m.
Best solution for this problem (and lots of other governmental problems!) is firm tort reform. Costs nothing, gains everything.
Best reform: Loser pays in advance. You want to sue for a million, post a cash bond of two million to guarantee you can pay the defendant’s legal costs.
Of course this will never happen. Democrats won’t pass even the slightest reform because they’re paid by trial lawyers, and Republicans won’t pass even the slightest reform because they WANT to be paid by trial lawyers.
wobble506 on December 19 at 6:29 a.m.
and don’t forget, most of them won’t vote for it because they are lawyers.
Bob_Knows on December 19 at 6:35 a.m.
Instead of refusing to help people, the city should pass a “Good Samaritan” law that makes the car owner liable for his own damage, and blocks greedy trial lieyers from suing. What we need is tort reform, not regulations that stop people from helping each other.
Bob_Knows on December 19 at 6:39 a.m.
Polistra is right. The losing trial lieyers should pay for the winners legal costs. And, very important, a trial lieyer who expected to profit 50% of the damages should have to pay 50% of the costs. That would stop all the “fishing” lawsuits that are filed hoping to settle because the company sued would have to spend more on lieyers defending themselves than the cost of a settlement. Make the trial lieyers pay for their own scams.
fishinjay on December 19 at 7:19 a.m.
As soon as airlines stop charging me to check bags then I’ll go back to limiting my carry on. Until then, I’m going to carry on as much as I possibly can to avoid the extra fees.
RedCedar on December 19 at 8:10 a.m.
The “risk manager’s” job is to tell the commissioners how to avoid risk. The commissioner’s job is to thank him for his advice and then consider the big picture. We have specialists in society for a reason, but we have to keep in mind that specialists, by definition, don’t see the big picture. We see that in medicine all the time. Each specialist doctor naturally sees his goal as fixing the one specific body system that he’s an expert in. Lawyers will always tell you what to do (or more often what NOT to do) to stay out of legal trouble, and this risk management guy is a in the same category.
What’s not stated here is whether the county is self-insured. Most likely it is part of a government insurance pool. If the insurers flat-out refuse to cover any claims related to “good-Samaritan” road workers, then the commissioners may have to negotiate some sort of compromise such as requiring a disclaimer be signed. I once had a National Park employee give my car a jump-start, and he made me sign a disclaimer first. Stupid, but that’s government and lawyers for you, and better than having my car towed for being stuck where it shouldn’t have been parked. On the other hand, having the commissioners personally “get involved” whenever the road boys want to pull somebody out of a ditch is ridiculous.
Mr. Bartel qualified his advice by saying “I cannot recommend… as risk manager”. It may well be that he isn’t really asking the commissioners to do anything, but is just making a “CYA” statement so he can say that he told them. This is no different from a lawyer telling a landlord client that according to the law the landlord must save all the deadbeat tenant’s stuff and get a judgment in court before disposing of it, even though the tenant has skipped town with lots of rent owing and left no forwarding address, a tax accountant telling a client that yes he must report all the money he made at the yard sale, or a doctor telling a patient that he should exercise more and eat less junk food. We pay these specialists to give us their advice, but if we want to actually live a life in which we really get things done, we have to choose to ignore them sometimes.
The county commissioners should honestly thank Mr. Bartel for his opinion, ask him how many damage claims the county pays in a typical year over this sort of thing, and if the answer is in the neighborhood of “zero”, as I suspect, make the executive decision to let the road boys keep helping folks out.
philipgregory on December 19 at 8:30 a.m.
If those “RISK MANAGEMENT” people had their way nothing would get done.
The county is in the business of SERVING THE PUBLIC not lawyers and accountants!
Find a way to minimize vulnerability to those letigious cretans and stupid judges and get on with the job!
mrd on December 19 at 9:28 a.m.
Let the plow drivers pull people out. Stupid lawyers and their frivolous lwsuits mess things up for everyone. If you don’t want your car pulled out, decline the offer.
The_Seer on December 19 at 10:02 a.m.
Tort reform and the old “frivolous lawsuit” dead horses, I see.
Constitutionalists, most of them, who can’t see the irony of wishing due process for only those WHO CAN AFFORD IT! Hopefully they’ll visit Texas soon, the bastion of tort reform. For some reason Texans have some of the highest insurance rates and medicare/aid compensation rates in the nation, still.
Draft a waiver and get it over with. The county also has an interest in removing cars stuck on rights of way they maintain and burying them further with their plows while giving only a honk of the horn is counterproductive.
twobit on December 19 at 10:05 a.m.
Hey Bartel leave all the trucks in the lot they will be safe then. Bartel forgets what insurance is for and all so that the public owns those trucks and what happened to lend a helping hand. Bartel should read about the Good Smaritan maybe. Yes it is a risk to help people but lets use common sense Mr Bartel. I just read Red Cedar’s post and that too is true. But the county commissioners job to make the call that will do well for the tax payers. Nice to hear about the road guys helping out. I do live on the country roads and know some of the drivers and don’t think they could drive by and leave some one stranded. The waiver might be the way to go.
93bird on December 19 at 10:10 a.m.
Plow drivers can be trusted with driving a huge truck scraping snow and ice from roads with traffic in every direction, but can’t safely pull someone out of a ditch?
greenlibertarian on December 19 at 1:01 p.m.
Surprised the tow-truck owners, operators, and drivers haven’t piped up on this matter.
Funny how the usual idiots immediately leap to the TORT REFORM!!! false canard like trained monkeys.
Plowing a road IS different than pulling a car out of the ditch. Duh!
That being said, the plow drivers can learn to pull cars out of the ditch, especially in SIMPLE situations.