Consumers : An Unexpected Cost of Accidents
Los Angeles drivers “knock over fire hydrants with the regularity of Big Ben in London going off,” said Harvey Lutske of the Department of Water and Power. But if you’re the unlucky motorist who dings a hydrant, damages a power or telephone pole or wipes out a freeway guard rail, you’ve got a nasty surprise coming.
You’ll have to pay for the mess. And chances are it won’t be cheap. In most cases, you can expect to be billed for anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars by the affected utility or agency.
And if your teen-ager sets a fire with illegal fireworks, or you’re smoking in an off-limits fire hazard district and start a blaze, you can be held responsible for damages by the city, county or state for firefighting costs, which can run to several hundred thousand dollars.
Just how pricey the pay-back can be for causing damages to public property or in public places was illustrated last month by the case of a young Venice woman who fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into a utility pole.
Southern California Edison billed her $4,766.79 “to repair and/or replace facilities damaged on March 3, 1989.” The wreck actually had damaged only one $13.17 part of the power pole’s guy wires. But the utility claimed it required the labor of nine men to repair the total damages. Labor costs: $4,107.43.
Two Wires Came Down
The wreck “caused two wires carrying electricity to come down, causing the wrong tension on the wires for three to four spans (poles),” Kevin Kelly of SoCal Edison explained. “The problem was that those went back into a marshland and the trucks could not get back there, so they had to pull 2,000 feet of wire manually. Two or three strong guys couldn’t do that. It took more people.”
The emergency repairs also occurred in the wee hours when crews work on overtime, accounting for the high labor costs, said Kelly. The utility is trying to work out a payment plan in this unusual case, whose costs, if not covered by the woman’s auto insurance, will be prorated in $100-a-month charges--with a 10% annual finance charge.
In most cases, Kelly conceded, the charges for materials would be more and the labor less. “A person’s car insurance very often pays for it, but there’s no average accident claim,” he said. “They run the gamut from a loosened screw to knocking over a transmission tower. It can be a few dollars to thousands of dollars of damage.”
Other utilities and government agencies contacted said they bill motorists for property damage if they can prove the motorists were at fault--through police reports or witnesses. They will set up payment plans if a driver’s insurance won’t pay. But only SoCal Edison said it adds an annual finance charge.
“If we can identify the responsible party, we pursue our costs,” said Lutske, DWP’s chief claims agent. “Actually, those are city costs, because this is a city-owned utility. We contact the driver and the registered owner of the car. Under the law, both have responsibility (for damage). Hydrants cost about $500, give or take $100 to $200, depending on the amount of time and number of men it takes to turn it off.”
Two Utilities May Bill You
Last year, motorists damaged four hydrants a day in Los Angeles, Lutske reported.
Light poles, he estimated, cost from several hundred to several thousand dollars to repair or replace. “The highest bill I ever saw was $17,000, and that was because of the transformers” attached to the pole.
If the pole you hit is jointly owned by a power and a phone company, you’ll probably get billed by both, depending on the damage. In addition, you may hear from cable companies, which also have equipment on utility poles. According to representatives of GTE--which racked up 2,000 incidents and $4 million in damages last year--and Pacific Bell, phone poles cost $400-$500 to replace; “light duty” models in residential areas cost less, with heavy-duty poles on freeways costing more; equipment on or attached to poles runs up the tallies.
CalTrans also pursues motorists who damage its equipment. Costs range widely, depending on the hardware damaged, said Selma Gleason, the agency’s Los Angeles public affairs manager. Twenty-five feet of guard rail costs $784.20 including labor; a flashing freeway on-ramp light can range from $1,000 to $1,900 total; attenuators (crash cushion barrels) cost $5,395 apiece; crash greats that look like fish fins are $15,000.
The Least Damage
Of all utilities, Southern California Gas Co. seems to record the least damage by motorists and homeowners. A driver occasionally hits a meter ($200 including installation) in an alley, “but that’s strictly an accident and we usually wouldn’t charge him,” company spokesman Dick Friend said. “If a homeowner is out digging up the yard and accidentally chomps the gas pipe, he is technically responsible. But we’re generally very liberal and will replace it. People don’t know where the pipes are.”
The gas company, however, comes down hard on licensed contractors who damage its lines and other equipment. “If a licensed contractor damages lines, he is required by law to replace them,” said Friend, who observed that contractors, before digging, are supposed to call USA (Underground Service Alert).
That service, supported by all utilities and cities, notifies utilities of planned work so they can go to the site and mark locations of their lines and equipment. Contractors who then cause damages not only are required to pay for them, they can also lose their state licenses, particularly if they work without the required permits.
Bill the Contractor
If a contractor is working on your property, such as building a pool in your yard, and damages gas lines in the process, the utility will bill the contractor, not you, because “they’re supposed to know where the lines are,” Friend said.
You should also know that fire departments can issue you citations that can end up in civil suits and criminal charges if investigators can prove you negligently or unlawfully started a blaze.
“We’ll try to recover the funds expended by the fire department in extinguishing and investigating a fire,” said Capt. Gary Seidel of the Los Angeles City Fire Department’s arson section. “Costs depend on the fire, the number of companies and people needed to extinguish it. A rubbish fire could cost $200. A big brush fire, hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Criminal Proceedings
The California Dept. of Forestry also can launch civil or criminal proceedings against adults or juveniles found to have started “negligent” fires. It pursues such cases “aggressively,” said Deputy Chief Keith Metcalfe of the agency’s Southern California Region, who added: “The cost of sending out one fire engine isn’t too great. But it can get pretty expensive when you’re sending out air tankers at $1,000 to $1,500 a load. . . . There’s no reason the taxpayer should have to pay for somebody’s ignorance.”
He said the agency files actions to punish offenders and recover its costs primarily “to prevent further fires. There’s a guy down in Riverside who’s still sending us $150 or $200 a month from a fire he started back in the ‘70s.”
