An Amazon product helps prevent other drivers from using a private entrance to turn around – users have mixed reactions.
While turning into someone else’s driveway isn’t illegal, it can be annoying.
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Rain Noe, a former New Yorker turned farmer in the South, was faced with a problem he never imagined as a city slicker: not being able to safely turn around if his GPS indicated the wrong direction.
“It’s often easy to miss a destination here, even when the navigation is working,” Noe wrote for Core 77.
“And when you overtake, you need a safe way to turn around, which isn’t easy in twisty two-lane country.
“If there’s no visible traffic, you can try to risk a three-point turn, but there’s no guarantee that a logging truck won’t come barreling around the turn when you’re in the middle of it.”
Read more about sidewalks
Therefore, the safest way to turn around is to pull into a driveway along the road to ensure a safe turnaround.
However, he began to notice several sidewalks with signs stating that other drivers using the driveway to turn around were “trespassing” and not allowed.
“Upon first seeing this, I asked my wife about them and she suggested it was just a way of expressing hostility,” he wrote.
“I was surprised that people were willing to pay for, install and have to look at such ugly signs when they come home from work every day, but some people are angry people, I guess.”
The hostility has triggered a wave of online shopping to find other products people use to stop people from using their private sidewalks to get around.
In his search, he found a product that resembles strips of thorns to put at the end of a driveway to make people think they were going to run over a strip of thorns.
The track features rubber “spikes” that look like strips of metal that would tear tires and damage wheels when run over.
The owner knows they will bend over to pick up the vehicle, but the strangers have no idea.
Noe recited some comments about the fake spike strip that indicated some owners took sick pleasure in seeing drivers panic that they would cause serious damage to their vehicle.
“Works perfectly! No more intruders coming into my garage!”
A similar criticism was presented about someone openly admitting this.
“Finally, a product that caters to sociopaths!” the review read.
Another review mentioned using a camera to observe drivers’ reactions when they see the fake spike strip.
“The camera I installed five years ago allows me to enjoy the expressions of frustration and fear when these monsters enter my garage ‘by accident,’” the review read.
Is it illegal to use someone’s driveway to turn around?
Although sidewalks are considered private property, it can be difficult to prove a driver is wrong if they use them to make a U-turn, according to legal experts.
Unless a crime is committed by the person using the sidewalk to turn around or there is damage, it is a nuisance but not illegal.
“It generally will not be illegal,” wrote Texas litigation attorney Daniel Lee O’Neil.
“Unless they are using your driveway to commit a drug selling crime, the police generally won’t be as interested in the matter.”
It is recommended that property owners post signs warning against using their sidewalks or politely ask neighbors to turn around elsewhere before calling the police.
Source: AVVO
“This is exactly what I needed for those damn people who turn around in the driveway! The audacity of some people, using five and a half meters of my garage without paying rent or even asking, just because they were ‘lost’ or ‘lost’ their turn!”
Other users of the product, however, said they used it to protect their families rather than covet their space.
“Excellent and safe product”, began the review.
“I finally found something to prevent delivery people from putting the safety of my dogs in the yard at risk.”
Another wrote that they used it to keep delivery drivers away from the lawn they were trying to regrow.
“This really worked in directing our mail delivery man to fix our front yard, which he had been doing despite notes and other spotlights trying to show him the edge of our yard.”
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
