Shoppers beware! Land mines are lurking out there in some of our Encinitas parking lots, where you wouldn’t expect them to be, and the out-of-town owners are stubbornly negligent about removing or properly identifying these bumper-high chunks of concrete. I call them “lunkers.”
Signage can be annoying and distracting, but it serves a purpose. If I park in a legal space where a person of normal height cannot see an obstacle while sitting behind the wheel of a normal automobile, that’s a lunker.
I know, I’m a dummy, but even if I was aware of a lunker, am I expected to remember something that has no business being there in the first place? Maybe so, but it doesn’t excuse the owners from not placing a sign on it or removing it.
What should a driver do? What about the many legal drivers without benefit of a perfect memory? Should you take a selfie with a lunker so as not to forget about it, or run a lap of inspection around your car before getting in, or perhaps use your GPS to locate it? Maybe your avatar should inform you. Focus it, Hal!
Seriously, why bother having stop signs, or even traffic lights, if the public is expected to remember unidentified dangers? You idiot, you should just remember that that intersection full of other cars is lurking up ahead!
In this case, these lunkers serve no purpose and “have no business being there”, according to a judge. Other nicer lots have poles with overhead lighting attached to their lunkers.
Similar spatial anachronisms in this same shopping center are properly identified with cones and curbing, yet they are taller and larger such that there is not the slightest danger of overlooking them and causing an altercation with one’s bumper. Explain that.
Why hasn’t Code Enforcement sited the owners? How many others have experienced a “road block” in seeking compensation? That’s what happened to me and I’m not the only one. Interesting that AFTER I reported it, a cone and curbing were added to the one I hit.
These obstacles are dangerous to your health, to your vehicle; they discourage shopping, preventing good rent-paying businesses from being patronized in our fine city. We live in a civilized community of people who follow the law, pay taxes, and use good judgment with common sense while driving. Get rid of the lunkers.
Celia Kiewit is an Encinitas resident.
