Community Corner

Blocked Stop Signs, Proceed With Caution (Post Your Photos)

Safety alert! Drive about town and a common sight are stop signs visually blocked by overgrown tree branches, leaves and shrubbery. We've spotted a few, we're sure you can add to this photo collection. Motorist beware!

UPDATE POSTED JULY 11, 10:50 a.m. —

Deanna Hurley, aide to Hillsborough County Commissioner Al Higginbotham, said in an email today that she has been asked by Higginbotham to "direct Public Works staff to work on the visibility issues on all sites listed in the article."

Hurley asked that if Brandon Patch posts any additional blocked stop sign photos, to forward those alone. As she put it:

Find out what's happening in Brandonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"If you receive any additional sites, please let me know and we'll get public works to those too."

Here's our chance to clean up blocked stop signs in the Greater Brandon community and beyond.

Find out what's happening in Brandonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Please post your photos in this gallery and let us know where they are located. If you don't have a camera, post a note in the comment box below.

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ORIGINAL POSTING:

Brandon Patch editor Linda Chion Kenney first posed the question on Facebook, "Is it just me, or are there WAY too many stop signs obstructed by foliage?"

In asking that question, she hoped Brandon Patch readers would join in the conversation about how prevalent such a sighting is throughout the town and whether others view it as a safety issue.

Arlene VonderPorten Jacobs apparently is of like mind.

"...have people send in pictures of stop signs and post the name of the street corner," she said. "See if it gets anyone's attention."

And Melissa Cohagen noted in her post a very real accounting of the danger posed with overgown foliage blocking from view a local stop sign:

There is a stop sign at the 7/11 parking lot @ Belle Schoals and Fishhawk Blvd that is obstructed by trees. And on occasion, I have seen people, who didn't see the sign, blow thru it and get a citation from the police sitting there waiting for them. Instead of wasting resources on a 'trap', maybe the money should be invested in a landscaper to trim the foliage. But maybe that was the point; a trap to gain revenue....

In jest, a reader asked: "Patch is now anti-tree?"

To which Cohagen added, "If it creates an unsafe hazard, we should be'anti' anything and everything."

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Let us know your views on the matter in the comment box below. We'll use this post as well to collect photos of stop signs obstructed from view by overgown foliage.


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