Grand Avenue Exit Curb Not Avoidable If Not Labeled At Night

Did you crash on Grand Avenue 210 Eastbound, at night?? If so, do not believe your insurance company that you are at fault because you were the driver. The road was not designed properly to allow a driver at night to stop because, the object of impact was a curb, and.....

“no objects shorter than 1080 mm (3.5 ft.) would be lit by the headlights at 425 ft. Therefore, there is not adequate stopping sight distance at night for any objects shorter than 1080 mm (3.5 ft.).” Which in this case is the curb.

“The driver cannot see a 0.5 ft. object until he/she is 275 ft. away, with a required stopping sight distance of 425 ft. The travel time of 3.7 sec. to the object is less than the required maneuvertime of 4.5 sec. to avoid the object.” pg 27. Thus, if travel time is less than maneuvertime, an impact will occur.

Therefore, at 55mph at night, the minimum Stopping Sight Distance in this situation is 425ft, yet the object would remain unseen until it was 275ft away, thus causing an impact.  

Did you see a sign, at 425 ft, telling you a curb was approaching? Hurry! You only have 6 months to file a claim with "The California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board (VCGCB),"
which they will deny you, but then you can go to the regular court and battle.   

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Road Design Measurement Photos, 210 Eastbound Grand Avenue Exit

Did you crash exiting Grand Avenue 210 Eastbound at night?  You are not at fault.  According to the following paper,

Discussion Paper No. 8.A

STOPPING SIGHT DISTANCE
AND DECISION SIGHT DISTANCE
prepared for
Oregon Department of Transportation
Salem, Oregon
by the
The Kiewit Center for Infrastructure and Transportation
Oregon State University
Corvallis, Oregon 97331-2302
September 2004

The road does not provide adequate distance for you to stop your vehicle at night.

What is the significance of these pictures?  This is the exit of Grand Avenue on the 210 Freeway, Eastbound.  There are no signs on the freeway indicating that a curve is approaching.  What if you were driving at night, at 55mph?  A driver would then have to use Decision Sight Distance, because the curb is below the height of the crest of the road. This means that time would elapse before the breaks were applied because the brain would have to process the information and the drive would have to react.    Decision Sight Distace in this case, according to the paper above, at 55mph is 535ft.  Unless you could see the curb from 535ft, you would impact it.    

  The distance needed to stop on this exit is 492 ft, at a minimum, is called Stopping Sight Distance.  That is if the object, the curve, was seen. 

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210 Eastbound Grand Avenue Exit Design Complaint

If you have found this blog, then you probably have a complaint about the freeway offramp on the eastbound Grand Avenue exit of the 210 freeway, in Glendora, California.  On December 31, 2011, at night, I rode my sportbike off into the shoulder, injured myself and my passenger, but we are recovering nicely.     

My complaint is this;  There are no warning signs to reduce speed or yellow turn arrow warning signs of a sharp right turn coming after a steady incline followed by a dip in the road, so the turn is below the line of sight when driving, especially at night: it looks like the off ramp will merge back onto the freeway, and I had every intention to merge back into the freeway therefore made no effort to stop. 

I filed a complaint vs Cal Trans and will attempt to file a suit myself.  Larry Parker looked into the case, and I made some attempts at other road design complaint lawyers, and the conclusion is that unless there is substantial injury like paralysis or death, then it is not worth pursuing due to time and litigation costs. 

So, if you are severly injured by this offramp, you are not the first.  Look at how many skid marks there are on the curb. 

Gary Nakauchi

thehealthystyle@yahoo.com

http://www.facebook.com/gary.nakauchi

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