As Ron, the reader who sent me this asked, is it really cheaper not to pay for infrastructure? I wonder what it would have cost to fix the road. Maybe this young mom would be alive now:
(AP) MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The state of Alabama has paid $1 million to relatives of a South Carolina mother of two who was killed by a chunk of concrete from a pothole that flew through the windshield of a vehicle on a bumpy, crumbling section of Interstate 20 almost a year ago, officials said Thursday.
The family was paid even though they had never sued the state.
Two state officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the money was paid to compensate for the death of Jo Maureen Fisher in the freak accident, which occurred as the 33-year-old woman was traveling through the state with her husband and two young children on their way home to Goose Creek, S.C. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the settlement.
Following a review, the state’s Division of Risk Management made the payment for the Alabama Department of Transportation in a negotiated settlement with the family without any lawsuit or administrative claim being filed. State law limits such payments to a maximum of $1 million.
The state attorney general can approve such settlements when it’s obvious a lawsuit is inevitable and there’s a “serious risk” of the state losing, one of the officials told AP.
They’re fixing the road now. Better late than never, I guess.
I ‘m sure a regular schedule of road maintenance would be cheaper. What an awful story. I feel for the family.
Please, please, please, someone make sure to hang the I-35 bridge collapse around T-Paw’s neck!
As for “cheaper”, infrastructure maintanance can be expensive, but not as expensive as rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, plus the human costs in avoidable deaths and injuries. The money is there: it’s in the highway fund from gas taxes, it’s just that SOME in our governments would rather the money sit in the fund and make the deficit look smaller.
Nothing changes until it’s a GOPer’s close family member that gets killed by that loose chunk of concrete. Then the priorities will suddenly alter.
Better late than never . . . well except for her family.