Yep. I have told my 12 year old step son that anytime his Traxxas Nitro powered truck hits the roadway its fair game. 100% of the liability rests on his shoulders at that time. We have a park across the road and a school yard 1/2 a block away, plenty of room for trouble free driving. Its also loud, our truck, so we normally take it to a sand pit outside of town, and he never uses it without me...he thinks its because I want to make sure he follows the rules....when really its about making it something just the two of us share in.

That being said, no judgement from me and a classy neighbour would have offered to replace it or at least pay for its depreciated value.

NOW.....Stop looking at this from the wrong angle....now you have the perfect reason TO UPGRADE!!!!!:D

I see the obvious concern is not for the toy, but what, or more to the point who else she could hit.

I would get one of those bright yellow silhouettes of a kid holding a flag on a long whip like you see on a sand buggy and get in the habit of putting it in the street so she would have to stop, get out of her vehicle and move it to pull into her drivewy in the way you describe. Buddy of mine made one of those out of 1/4" steel plate and painted it hunter orange. He lived in a neighbrhood with kids. Probably weighs 100#, made it after the plywood one he bought got hit. He kept the plywood sign that says "Children at Play" Nobody has hit that thing yet, don't know that you would drive off after running it over, maybe on a flatbed. He puts it on the side of the street, about as far out as a parked car would be. Showed it to the CHP guy that lives a few blocks away and he thought it was a good idea. I guess it is not a hazard if it is a warning sign that is not permanent, or that is what he said.

That's different really, backing out of the driveway and having something dart into the path like that never would have been seen.

It happened so fast that I simply didn't have time to even get her attention. Normally I have that time and have the driver's attention and eye contact.

Wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't a whole day old.


I left this out too - her son has an RC truck himself. Where do you think he drives it? I'm just sayin...

Tabs, you sound like Dipso here.

Daayumn kids have it easy these days.

Too much effort to take it to a park or a vacant lot.

Or maybe I'm wrong. The problem could be anxiety ...you know, the park being too far away from the X-Box. :-/

I am a bit confused on one point; who pays if it's a 16y/o kid driving in a real car hits a parked car after swerving to miss an adults toy car? (read: do we really need more dynamic road obstacles?)

Think about how would his end if you took it to small claims court.

I have run over a kid's RC truck once years ago, split the back of the chassis off sending the truck into two big chunks. His dad wouldn't let me pay for the new parts.

Kid had gotten his stadium truck stuck on the outside of a high entry speed corner 90degree + corner, didn't see his truck until I was just past the apex with a full head of steam and no where to go.

Monster Truck > Stadium Truck when it comes to a hit like that.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1393089288.jpg

My only concern is what is the safe speed for coming around that corner and reaction time? If she could not anticipate the need to stop, she was not operating her vehicle safely. If this is a blind intersection she must slow down to what a safe speed is, even if it is lower than the posted speed.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/curriculum/Unit%207.pdf

The second page contains the code cites.

Mike,

Sorry to hear about it. IMO, peace with neighbors come with a cost sadly you may have to the first one to start. Move on, its only 100 bucks. Look at it as a lesson learn learned about her or them. If I were your neighbor, I would have immediately walked over to offer to pay for a new toy for you kid (knowing damn well its your toy:)) It the right thing to do, but no one seems to do the right thing anymore today.

We completely agree on that.

But that subject is one that will certainly get you in trouble, even more likely than asking for any money for the broken RC vehicle. People are VERY touchy about how their driving skills are perceived. Very. :/

There it is.

And there it is again. Few things in life are zero-sum, but I really rue the day I have to live with neighbors.

Neighbors can be good, or bad, or neutral, just like any other human-human interaction. I guess I have always been very lucky, because I have always had great neighbors. Nice folks who keep an eye on the place while we were gone, would help with snow-clearing or leaf-raking. Even the college kids that lived next door a few years back - great kids, and no monkey business. :)

in all of this mess the really important question has so far not been asked: is she hot?

Have to laugh it off. One of the last RC models I spent hours on building was this Kyosho kit of a Honda NSR bike. I gave it to one of the nephew's for keeps and so he's out in the driveway with it for the first time. Watching him carefully, another kid rides his bicycle up to take a closer look and in slow motion horror, 'accidently' rides over it. :eek:

http://i1074.photobucket.com/albums/...6/DSCF4264.jpg

Mike, you said she usually moves pretty quick coming around that corner, which obviously contributed to it. You also said she stopped, but then, with her typical impatience, began moving again too soon after stopping... not giving the R/C vehicle enough time to get out of the way. Two contributing factors on her part.

Since you and she run in the same circles re: the kids' sports, she may bring up the incident again out of courtesy.

If she does mention paying for it, why not say something like, "Okay, it was new and it cost $100... how about we go 50-50 on it?"

That couldn't hurt.

But since you replied the way you did when she asked if she ran over it, it's probably best to leave it as is unless she initiates. Make sense?

I understand that she drives too fast in the neighborhood and that is a huge problem.

However when I had a R/C car I never ran it in the street for fear it would get run over.

Having said that I would have offered chip in on the R/C car, but that is just me.

Another thing to consider about running a R/C car in the street... what if someone swerves to miss the R/C car and that causes an accident?

Driver
was
a
five
year
old.


Barney the dinosaur is in the same drivers' lapping class league?

Here is some perspective, a friend of mine was on his bicycle with his three year old son in a trailer, and his neighbor ripped around the corner and put both of them in the hospital. They had to cut the boy out of the trailer. The neighbor's husband came over and apologized a few weeks after they got out of the hospital, they still haven't heard from the wife who was the driver, and this was over two years ago.

100 bucks is a cheap lesson to learn about a person like that. Next time it might not be a toy.

Despicable. Absolute despicable.

^Seriously. Complete scum.