Unsafe road condition

YOUR STATE NAME - California

A couple of months ago, I partially ran my vehicle off the road while making a left turn from a state highway into a state point of interest. With traffic in the opposite direction traveling at 65-80+ miles/hour, and no traffic light, I did not have a lot of time to negotiate my turn. During my turn, I realized that I was at the bottom of an incline and could not see the road on the other side. I missed the road I was turning into by about 5 feet and found my front tires in a ditch and rear tires off the ground. While talking with the park rangers, they concurred that the intersection was dangerous. I wrote the CA Department of transportation and recommended that the put guard rails up to prevent similar accidents like mine. They recently copied me in a letter to the County Works Department and shared that the road is too narrow and needs to be widened. Since there does appear to be partial negligence by the State, and I incurred $1,000 in property damage, what steps can I take to make a claim against the state? Which state /county agency is responsible for taking these claims?

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

My response:

You were very detailed with your description; however, I find it interesting that your last question was "Which state /county agency is responsible for taking these claims?"

You never mentioned the county name where the incident happened, nor the name of the roadway where your incident occurred. So, how could I, or anyone, be able to give you that answer?

Anyway, if it was a State road, and not a county road, you can click on the following, which will take you to the CalTrans site, and there, they have the forms and explanations about making a claim.

[url]http://www.dot.ca.gov/[/url]

Be aware, however, if the roadway is a county road, and you make a claim to the wrong agency, e.g., CalTrans, you may wind up blowing your 6 month claims Statute of Limitations. So, find out which governmental entity owns that roadway.

IAAL

Unfortuanately, you know as well as i do, that until there is a serious death at that intersection, no agency would be willing to stick out their necks and agree its dangerous, becuase then you would have a claim, since they knew about it.

What they practically admitted in their letter is a First, a very rare occurance of possibly acknowleging its a problem.

I think the person who wrote you the letter will be fired or transferred very very soon, and will admit sending you that letter was a mistake.

Good luck!