By Staff
Leave the pear trees alone
Editor:
I want to protest the plan to cut down the Bradford Pear Trees in Hartselle along the median of US 31. A news story in the Decatur paper this weekend indicated that a motorist had struck a tree and had hired a lawyer to sue the city of Hartselle. Paying this would be just about as silly as paying the lady that spilled her hot coffee and sued McDonalds. The litigious citizen in our case victim didn’t hit oncoming traffic because the trees blocked her vision. No, she hit an immobile tree.
I understand that the state highway construction guidelines dislike trees in medians with diameters larger than four inches. I note that this is a guideline, not a law. If it were a law, the state would have to remove the telephone poles in the median south of Beltline Road on US 31. They are larger than the trees in Hartselle. If the trees have to go, so do the poles.
I’m a new resident of Hartselle, but I feel like I’ve moved home. What I would like to see is some common sense; a sense of personal responsibility enforced by the court system would go a long way towards ending such silliness as this. Let this driver force the trees out and next, she’ll sue when she hits a parked car, or the curb, or…runs into the ditch. You name it; this isn’t about trees in the median.
Richard Caniglia
Hartselle