You get what you wish for!
A neighbor had a problem with their driveway. They hired a roofer to re-do the house and he drove into the driveway with a truck load of shingles (which are heavy) and it "punched through" the driveway, leaving a three-foot diameter hole. Turns out, the culvert under the driveway had collapsed and all the sand supporting the concrete washed away. It wasn't the roofer's fault, but some folks would have sued anyway.
A similar thing happened to me. We had two huge pine trees removed and they used a enormous crane to crane the trees over the house. If we hadn't had them removed, our insurance would not have been renewed. The crane guy said, "If I park this on your driveway, it will crack!" I replied, "What's the alternative?" and he said, "not removing the tree." So, crack away. We needed a new driveway anyway.
But apparently quite a few delivery companies are getting sued over driveway issues. You know the kind of people with asphalt driveways who get all weirded out about "strangers" turning around in their driveway. In a way you can't blame them - they spent thousands having it paved, only to have someone dry-turn on the apron and twist two big divots in the asphalt. So they put signs and cones and flags and even sawhorses in front of their driveway and scream at people who try to turn around. It is no way to live.
Concrete driveways are no better - I noted before how on our island the sand washes away (not as dramatically as our neighbor) and the corners crack in neat triangles. If you have a concrete driveway and you can see a gap under the edge, fill it with sand or dirt and pack it in. The soil erodes around the edges of concrete driveways and then the concrete slab is basically a cantilever. Even a small car will snap off the concrete.
So the UPS man backs his truck into your driveway to deliver a package and "snap!" the corner of a slab cracks. It wasn't his fault - the driveway was poorly made, poorly maintained, or just plain old. But the homeowner and his opportunistic attorney (are there any other kind?) sees a "deep pocket" and free new driveway and they sue - and often win.
Management at USPS, UPS, and FedEx then send a memo to their drivers - don't pull into someone's driveway. Park in the road, block traffic, and put on your flashers. Inconvenience everyone, because Joe Suemore wanted a free driveway. We get what we wish for.
In a way, it is like the roofing crises in Florida, going on for almost a decade now, and Ron DeSantis apparently thinks banning drag shows will solve the problem. Just kidding - he's in the pocket of the litigation attorneys - how being a Republican has changed over time! Time was, it was the Democrats who were patsies for the lawyers. Now everyone is for sale. DeSantis has a drive-through window in the Governor's Mansion.
Lawyers and crooked roofers in Florida formed an unholy alliance to scam insurance companies and homeowners. The roofer offers a "free evaluation" of your roof and then claims there is all sorts of "hidden damage" from a Hurricane years past, and instead of just replacing three broken shingles, you need a whole roof - and the insurance company should pay. So they sue the insurance company and the lawyer makes a ton of dough, and the roofer makes a ton of dough and maybe the homeowner gets a new roof - after living under a tarp for a couple of years and dozens of insurance companies stop writing homeowner's policies in the State of Florida.
You got what you wished for!
So now you are paying thousands of dollars for homeowners insurance policies (and you'll need three - flood, wind, and fire) sometimes into the five figures. Throw in a five-figure property tax bill and who the hell can afford to live in Florida anymore? But hey, at least there are no drag shows! Glad DeSantis is on the job solving real problems and not just making up imaginary ones.
This is, apparently, what people want. They want to externalize their problems onto others instead of solving them. They think the "evil corporations" and the "big insurance companies" should pay for everything and somehow magically, they won't just pass this cost onto us. "But the insurance companies make tons of profits!" they cry. Maybe so, but they aren't running a charity and their profit margins aren't 50% or even close. State Farm has a P/E ratio around 20, which means a 5% rate of return. That quickly goes negative when everyone gets a free roof, or, as happened in Alabama, a judge decides that a fire policy magically covers wind.
You know what? When I hear people whine about "the evil corporations, man!" or "those greedy insurance companies" I just want to punch them in the face. Fortunately, society already does that for me, as such people end up bewildered by our financial system and are continually flummoxed by it. For example, they also hate "the big banks" because they got charged a bounce fee for overdrawing their account. You see, it wasn't their fault, because their friend Sid was going to pay them back $20 he owed them, and if they had deposited it before Monday, well, they wouldn't be overdrawn, and blah, blah, blah.
Externalizing. One never wins playing that game, and in fact, we all lose a little bit. Whether it is Karen demanding to see the manager or people returning goods after using them. It degrades all of us a little bit, as we pay for their shenanigans. Worse yet, when people like that corrupt the system, it forces the rest of us to join in. If you are a homeowner in Florida and don't get a free roof, not only do you have to pay for yours, you pay for your neighbor's as well! You see how this works to drag us all down.
Free roofs - isn't that Socialism, Ron?
It's the same with this driveway deal. I've seen videos of people whining because the FedEx truck is parked in the street. They fail to realize that it is parked there, blocking traffic, because people like you and me had to ruin a good thing.
I was talking to a neighbor this morning and they mentioned that the delivery vehicles are making ruts in his lawn after a big rain. Of course, the ten feet of lawn out by the road is part of the "right of way" and technically they can park there. In fact, you really have no rights to that property, but if you fail to mow it, they will fine you. Heads you lose, tails they win.
I explained to him the driveway thing. Not even a year ago, the delivery services would pull into the driveway apron and get off the road - but not on the lawn - to deliver packages or the mail. Today, either they park in the middle of the road, or pull onto the lawn, leaving ruts. You can complain all you want to, but this is the end result of people acting shitty and trying to get free driveways.
If your driveway cracks after a delivery van parks on it, your driveway sucks. It should be able to support the weight of a UPS truck loaded with packages - otherwise it ain't a driveway. And quite frankly, when you put in a driveway, you are kind of inviting people to use it, particularly when you've ordered something online. But some folks feel otherwise - even screaming at delivery people for walking up their sidewalk to deliver a package! Delivery drivers, of course, truck no shit from people like that, and back to the hub the package goes.
Again, a few stupid people ruining it for the rest of us.
