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Coercive Government
As I age, I have leaned a bit more libertarian without tumbling off of the cliff of insensibility. Something we are working on got me to thinking about how we view government intrusion.
One of the areas that our fire department services consists of some old ranch parcels that have been slowly carved up and sold off. The neighborhood consists of parcels from 6-50 acres, with one long private dirt road connecting them. Each (save one) has the address of 205 with a letter suffix. The problem is that the letters are entirely out of order. The first two parcels (one exception below) are 205A and 205B, then E, H, etc. 205D is the last parcel, about 3/4 of a mile down the private road.
We first encountered this about 15 years ago and when we asked about changing the addresses, one of the property owners said that people were absolutely refusing to change their addresses: “I’ve had this address for ten years and I’m not changing for anybody.”
We had a call there this week (to 205D). 85-year-old guy fell from on top of a toolbox behind the cab of his pickup and got knocked out cold, and didn’t know for how long. Pretty significant facial lacerations and possibly a dislocated shoulder. Our EMS unit transported him, and it’s all going to work out, but our initial response was a bit long, stopping to check each address carefully, as we knew the addresses were out of order. Had we not shown up earlier to assess the patient and drop traffic cones, the ambulance likely would have been delayed even longer; had our patient had a closed head injury (our major concern), the golden hour to get treatment would have been seriously curtailed.
I talked to our precinct commissioner this morning and we now have the legal ability to reassign the addresses over the objection of the homeowners. This is definitely for the good of residents but I imagine a few will be good and steamed up about it. I’m trying to figure out just how much we are villains here.
The picture is the entrance to the private road and the pertinent mailboxes. Almost funnier is that the first address on the road is 213, then followed by all the 205 addresses.
So what say the Ricochetti? Are we abusive government goons or helpful responders? Or something in between?
Published in General
I can see a couple possible reasons for why the 205 addresses might come “after” the 213 ones, but too complicated to get into here.
As for the assignations, it might be argued that the people own the property, but not some right to decide what others – especially rescue services, etc – call it.
Maybe if they’re kinda crotchety older people, if you start saying something like “So, your pronoun is H?” they would get the idea.
Whenever anyone tries to make this kind of change, people get really annoyed. But someday that mess will result in a death–and they will blame you. I’d make the change–you might give them a chance for one-time input on the decision, and then just do it. Eventually (after all the upset calls) they will thank you.
Yes, there might be some temporary confusion over mail/parcel deliveries, but long-term it’s best to straighten out now.
Myself, I would probably look for some way to have a different number for each lot, but that may be impracticable at this point.
And for some large lots that might be further divided, maybe skip a few letters to allow for future changes.
I also wonder about something like “odd” letters for one side of the road, and “even” letters for the other…
If there were some way to provide for some standardized signage, like number-painted curbs in cities, I wonder if that might help too. But country folk may not want anything like that, even if it’s just at ground level.
Oh, and what about just naming the new “road” something else? Like Something Lane, or whatever. That makes it easy for each to have their own number. And no confusion with having 205 come AFTER 213.
Well, all government is coercive, else it couldn’t govern.
If I understand it correctly, the new procedure is the residents have to name their road and then addresses are assigned using that new road name. I can’t imagine the upcoming pissing contests over the naming of the road.
Ihatekendallcounty Lane, or
Eatsh**commisionercarpenter Drive,
Helphelpimbeingrepressed Boulevard
Whew, I’m glad I expressed that thought first! :-)
Do you think they might agree on Donald Trump Lane?
Conservatism requires that we balance individual rights and responsibilities to the community. There are things the individual owns, and things the community owns. A street address seems like community property, not individual.
Take away the individual from this situation, and the address is not affected. Take away the community, and the address loses all significance and value.
They couldn’t decide upon their own version of latitude/longitude, either.
Extra points for anyone who spots the Monty Python reference.
I suppose we could take a page from IT and allow for their postal addresses to stay the same and have 911 and the Emergency Services use a translation table that converts them to GPS coordinates.
Their reluctance to assign rational addresses affects others, everything from Amazon deliveries to visitors to emergency services. I would say the nutcases on the road shouldn’t be allowed to hold out against reason in this case because of the spillover effects.
And how many of the residents would like to have a more reasonable address system but are being outshouted by the nutcases?
They might do that anyway. But it makes sense to give that road a name of its own now, and then put numbers on the lots. Since they’re completely new addresses, that means nobody has any basis to complain about “A” or “B” or “H” whatever.
And they wouldn’t all have to fit within 100 numbers or something either. It could be divided into “blocks” even if there aren’t any cross-streets, with the numbers increasing by 100 for each “block.” That also addresses my previous point, about leaving some “gaps” to allow for future sub-dividing without having to use nonsense like 1/2 or whatever.
Just don’t call it Runcorn Avenue, okay?
The second one.
Oh the hollering and stomping of feet when my home place finally got with modern times and started naming roads. “But what’s wrong with rural route 2 box whatever. It’s been this way since 1940!” And “can’t they find it by road numbers!” They still complain about what some roads are named. Now in my husband’s family, there is a new road that had to be named and they are all complaining about that. Some people just want to….well, complain. (not the word I wanted to use)
You aren’t the villains.
I too wondered about the everyday services providers (deliveries, plumbers, etc.). In 2018 we moved into a new construction house on a brand new street in a brand new subdivision. It took about 18 months for all the different map and delivery route software providers to get our street onto their maps. In the meantime we provided a lot of “special instructions” to make sure delivery and service providers could find us.
I still sometimes mention a nearby large landmark, as on occasion a provider will confuse our street with a street of a similar name in the opposite corner of town.
I also quickly thought that it is not unheard of for cities to change the names of streets. In particular, all the cities that some years ago changed some street to “Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard,” which I think is a lot sillier reason to force people to deal with an address change than is getting accurate and quick deliveries and first responder responses. Dealing with address changes is not unprecedented.
Why can’t it be both?
The house numbers on our rural street (zoned agricultural, lots of 5 acres minimum in size) in Trump country are not in the right order. They’re almost in perfect numerical sequence, but not quite. We all do have green and white house number signs that were provided by the county many years ago to make it more likely that firetrucks and EMS vehicles would go to the right house. I need to remount ours. Back before the days of Google Maps and GPS, delivery drivers would sometimes leave things at the wrong house. There were a few times when I could have scored a free pizza that was ordered by one of the neighbors. But those pizzas are never as good as the pizzas my wife makes, and are probably not as good for me, either. And it doesn’t happen any more, either.
Late edit: I would not like changing my house number, even if I was paid by the hour to compensate me for all the time it would take to change my address.
When I ran our local history museum, which covered an entire block, I discovered that the entrance had been on the other side of the block several decades before. When the entrance moved to the current location, the address stayed the same. So visitors who came to the address arrived at the old, now-padlocked entrance.
I fought and fought to get it changed. I got the city building inspector, who assigned new addresses, to approve the change. I put it on my business cards and our brochures. But I couldn’t get it changed in Google Maps because they wanted a document showing the change, like an insurance form or phone bill. I asked the city clerk to change our insurance and phone locations when she paid the next bills, but she simply responded, “I’m not inclined to do that.” The building inspector looked at me and shrugged his shoulders and that was that.
Then I decided to call the phone company and tell them that our address was wrong. They gladly changed it. Then I sent the copy of the new phone bill to the insurance company, and they changed our address too. Then I could send a scan of both to Google to prove the museum address was indeed incorrect. And finally visitors started coming to the right entrance.
You have to marvel at the power of entrenched petty bureaucrats.
In a remote, limited cell, rural area (not all roads are paved either) where we have a home there is a county requirement to post the legal designation (map, book, lot) for the property at the start of the access road/driveway. Has to be legible and at x” high – high enough for someone in a truck to read it, but otherwise no required form. No change to mailing info – just the information responders need to find the actual property. No one minds and everyone does it – even those who won’t agree to more cell towers or who don’t want or have any name or # at their property. Could be an Eagle Scout project for some.
Added: ours is nailed at shoulder height to one of the trees at the bottom of the drive. It’s a private road without mail delivery, so no house #. There aren’t any street lights either, so we have solar lights to make sure friends can find the drive. Neighbors have various similar solutions. It’s really dark there at night.
You know how I feel about dumb addresses if you saw my response to Tex’s survey.
But I also freely admit that we are now “Old Loveland” after many years mouldering in the lower caste, the Transients.
And that means that we still call the Blue Bridge “The Blue Bridge” even though it isn’t Blue anymore…hasn’t been for decades. To be more accurate, the Blue Bridge is no longer even there. They chopped it up for scrap.
And we still call the Pink House “The Pink House”. As in…
The point is, be sympathetic to those who have lived in a place for a long time. To you as a First Responder, “B” and “H”, or “fifth” and “third”, or “western” and “southern”, or “pink” and “blue” may be just dry, lifeless attribute names or ordinal numbers. But to oldsters, they have deep connections to old memories.
I don’t really think that. I just started writing this and couldn’t stop. You guys probably have a First Responder code for this.
Want an address that doesn’t change?
Pick one that isn’t subject to government’s rules. What 3 Words is a fun system.
“The Old <Whoever> Place” often works.
There was either a Homer Price or Henry Huggins story I read as a child (in elementary school, back in the 1960s) that centered around a new Levittown-style subdivision with no road signs yet installed. When a landmark farmhouse was torn down, no one could find their way home.
A few days ago @westernchauvinist posted a quote about how the safety-first mentality will be the end of us all. I wish I could find it now.
Interesting post thanks. When I was a police officer most of our streets were numbered and some side streets were named. For example, 145th Avenue and Division St. There was one area of the city that had named streets and named streets intersections. When I worked the name-on-name streets part of the city I memorized all those intersections.
When I was an FTO I would ask my trainee which intersection we just passed. I told them you need to know exactly where the car is at all times. It cuts down your response time for a call and in the worst-case scenario you can tell the dispatcher exactly where you are to get the help you need.
Ah. Here is the comment. I must confess that I haven’t read the Safety Last article.
Ours is “the first stoplight past Dinosaur Land!”
A lot of the rural areas near us have road signs based on the owners’ names of usually the only house up that road (e.g., “Lenny N Lucy Lane”).
In our county we have a system of named east-west roads that follow section lines, but the county has been imposing a system of lettered names on top of them. I’m not sure which came first. Probably the names came first, and the letters came later. I suspect a look at the old county atlases would bear me out.
There is a Division Drive that goes through the center of the county. Then to the north there are B Drive North, C Drive North, etc. at one mile intervals. To the south of Division Drive there are B Drive South, C Drive South, etc. The north-south roads have numbers, starting at the west with 1 Mile Road, 2 Mile etc, and so on to the east end of the county. But most of those roads also have names, often the name of an early settler on the road.
I don’t like being a number rather than a name, so I resist the trend. Many street signs now have both names on them, where they used to have just the name names. I do my best to ignore the letter or number names, and use the name names.
So far it has worked fine. But a few days ago I was in a doctor’s office and there was some confusion about my address. The receptionist asked, “Oh, is [X] Road the same as [RandomName] Road?” I answered yes and didn’t comment any further. We’ll see where it goes next, and whether I have to throw additional monkey wrenches into the system.
What does this have to do with wanting to have a name rather than be a number, you may ask? Well, I figure when they’re done with the roads they’ll come for the personal names. It’s a delaying action. So far I have resisted using Social Security numbers rather than names when singing Happy Birthday to someone, or when saying good-night to a family member. I hope that practice doesn’t change during my lifetime.
Some would say we’re already gone too far, when you compare with the primitive biblical days or Neolithic societies where knowing a person’s name meant you had some power over the person, and when names were kept in the family or clan, and outsiders were given some other designation to use without compromising the intimacy of the real name. The trend has been toward removing those distinctions. I resist. (But I must admit that I usually write “God” rather than “G-d.” Maybe I myself have gone too far already.)
Another observation, that doesn’t necessarily support anything I’ve written so far:
In movies about Nazi concentration camps, at roll call the officer in charge may call out for Prisoner 13725939 to report to the office. It’s to emphasize the dehumanizing nature of the camps.
But in the only Soviet-era Russian movie that I can think of where there is a roll call scene, the officer in charge of taking the roll calls the prisoners (who are inadequately clothed for the bitterly cold Siberian temperatures) by their surnames.
I don’t know which of these scenes is true to life, or if all or none of them are.