Who owns bus stop signs?

[alt_f13]

Hey, I just damaged a bus stop sign... pretty badly.

 

I imagine I'm going to be paying for it in a day or two.

 

Who owns bus stop signs so that I may nip this in the bud?

 

Also, would it be a hit and run if I were to "exit stage left" as it were? I did not do anything illegal, but I did damage municipal (not sure) property.

[blike]

Did you tell anyone?

 

If so whhy?!?!?

[atinymonkey]

I wanna know the story! Did you headbutt it? Did you? Butt it with your head, sir?

 

Mmmmmmmmm

 

I bet you did.

[greg1917]

Normally the council own bus signs. Why would you tell anyone???? My friend crashed his van into a tram in Amsterdam and just sped away, the tram took more damage than the van strangely enough!

[alt_f13]

It seems the general concensus around here is "Why assume resposibility for your actions?"

 

Well, frankly, I have no idea. I don't have any morals, and the twenty or so people who witnessed it are bound to have forgotten by now anyway.

 

Well, I worked all the physics out, and here is the story:

 

I was stopped at a red light, moving at zero meters per second...

When the light turned green, I accelerated at just below 3.9 m/s/s making a left turn around an approximately 4m radius circle, gaining up to around 4 meters per second by the end of it, 4m/s being the point at which the centrifugal force acting on the car was sufficient enough to cause the tires lose grip with the ground and start hydroplaning, as the coefficient of friction on this particular rainy night was around 0.4. When I found myself fishtailing out of the turn, I thought, turn where you want to be going, and promptly turned the wheel towards the sidewalk, away from oncomming traffic. It worked, too well, and the car drifted in that direction. Now, having lost some ammount of momentum to heat, I was moving sligtly slower than 4m/s, but as the brakes were locked by this time, and the coefficient of friction is much less for moving things than it is for static things, it was enevitable. The bus stop sign and me were destined to meet.

 

So with a "BAM" my locked up passenger side tire was ripped to shreds on the curb of the oncoming sidewalk, and my now slightly airborne front end was coming to terms with a 3 inch diametre metal pole. It snapped towards the car at the top, but luckily, it didn't have a leg to stand on, and the bumper cut it down to size. Now in an elongated, obtuse C shape, the pole caressed my car with a warmth only created by 23170 Newtons of braking force. I backed off the walk and proceded to change the tire, with my dad's truck (my dad having come to help with the tire change) parked behind the car to make sure noone made the same mistake I had and took me out. Well, his van has his company name and number on it, so I may or may not be found out, as the bus came by a short time later to see it, and slowed as it passed.

 

An all in all, it was a rather mundane and irritating experience. For those of you who wish to test my math, here it is.

 

 

Minimum accelleration needed to cause a skid in wet weather:

 

g * mass /mass * mu =

9.8 * 0.4 = 3.92 m/s/s

 

 

Distance available to accellerate:

 

1/4 * 2 * PI * R =

.25 * 2 * 3.14 * 4 = 6.28m

 

Velocity reached:

 

SQRT( V0^2 + 2 * A * D) =

SQRT( 0 + 2 * 3.92 * 6.28 ) = 7m/s

 

but

 

A_centrifugal = 3.92

 

so

 

A_c = v^2/R

 

v = SQRT( A_c * R )

v=SQRT( 3.92 * 4 )

v= ~ 4m/s

 

v= 14.4 km/h

 

So I started skidding at 14.4 km/h and at that point the coefficient of friction was greatly reduced due to tire movement.

 

So, who owns the sign? Should I fess up? Will my father's company be phoned?

[YT2095]

You "Owned" it dude

chill

[alt_f13]

Ha, I laughed after the crash.

 

"Man, I f_ked that thing right up."

 

Turns out now I smoked the alignment on my car too. Bummer.

[YT2095]

no pain... no gain!

 

but @ least You can say for a momement you "OWNED" a stop sign

cool part as well,,, ya didn`t get hurt nor hurt anyone else, a car... well that`s fixable

 

got any pics?

[KHinfcube22]

My bus driver ran over a stop sign trying to look at a dead deer in a ditch once........I laughed way too loud............She just sped off though.....

[alt_f13]

Hahahah.

 

No pics unfortunately, no digicam.

 

Think bendable straw where the bumper hit... normal bent straw at the base.