Guest View – The Opinion of Marty Richman

Nightmare on Severinsen Street?
By Marty Richman
A score of Severinsen Street residents appeared before the
Hollister City Council Tuesday night to request that the city
temporarily close their street to traffic on Halloween night for
safety. However, they refused to indemnify the city as
required.
Nightmare on Severinsen Street?

By Marty Richman

A score of Severinsen Street residents appeared before the Hollister City Council Tuesday night to request that the city temporarily close their street to traffic on Halloween night for safety. However, they refused to indemnify the city as required.

According to their testimony, Severinsen Street has become a Mecca for trick-or-treaters and the residents regularly give out hundreds of dollars in treats, candy, puzzles, little books, etc., to children. They were worried that the children running back and forth and the cars, often nosing in and out while following children, will result in a tragic accident. Therefore, they reasoned, closing the street would be safer.

It was simple as they saw it – just close the street. The problem they did not address was our extraordinarily litigious society where the deep pockets are often the target of expensive lawsuits. I’m not a lawyer, but from what I’ve seen, doing some cosmic good – like closing the street – does not relieve one of responsibility for specific things that go wrong. If it did, California would not need the Good Samaritan laws it has on the books.

As reported in the Los Angeles Times, an 86-year-old driver, reportedly fleeing a minor accident, crashed his vehicle through a wooden-and-plastic barricade into pedestrians at a Santa Monica open-air market killing 10, including an infant and a 3-year-old, and injuring 63 in July 2003.  In 2008, the City of Santa Monica and other defendants settled the case for $21 million. According to one of the plaintiff’s lawyers, “The No. 1 issue has always been public safety. The human error fact is foreseeable to traffic engineers and the city did not do a good job here.”

Although a judge had initially ruled that the city was immune from lawsuits because it had drawn up a market map that took into account safety, the state Courts of Appeal later reinstated allegations that the city had failed to protect market-goers.

The idea that one can just throw up any old temporary barrier across a street and allow a throng of children on the other side without the work of a traffic engineer appears to be legally reckless. Besides, this well-intentioned plan does not take into account new hazards that closing the street may create. First, there may be a risk to children dropped off near the barriers where traffic will be heavy without formal control. Second, there may be a false expectation of safety on a closed street; there are others.

The good people of Severinsen Street repeatedly said that closing the street was safer, yet they did not want to indemnify the city for this safer option. They argued that this was not a “private event” even though they obviously encourage it with their generosity; they also argued that it was not a “public event” so they would not have to pay for added city services. They seem to be saying it “just happens” and they want the street closure to “just happen” too.

I’m sure the residents know the legal risks, otherwise they would have no qualms about indemnification; they want to have their cake and eat it too. What the speakers did not know was that I publiclly brought the issue of risk at the Farmer’s Market to the council’s attention many months ago. Two wrongs do not make a right. 

Since the city does not have time to do an engineering study and the residents will not indemnify the city, perhaps an available police car, or even community volunteers, can patrol the street to remind the children and parents to stay on the sidewalk. The city will address the issue at a future meeting.