The problem is everywhere here these days: huge landscaping truck-trailer combinations left unattended in the middle of streets while crews mow, clip, or trim nearby. Never mind that under state law, vehicles cannot block traffic unless loading or unloading, but this is more difficult to define. Local enforcement is intermittent, if it happens at all, and landscapers know that the chance that police will ticket them or even tell them to move along is just about zero.
This is not some idle gripe. Roads throughout East Hampton Town and Village become an obstacle course, putting drivers simply trying to get past the trucks and trailers at risk of confrontation and placing pedestrians and cyclists in increased danger. Extra-long and wide trucks and trailers are not only an inconvenience; they can block sightlines for drivers exiting driveways or trying to get through an intersection. There are issues, too, for emergency vehicle access.
But voice a complaint, and the landscapers act as if you are the one at fault, even if they are sitting in the shade enjoying lunch while their military-size vehicle blocks a lane. It need not be this way. For one, along Bluff Road in Amagansett parking is prohibited between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., and, lo, by some miracle, the lawns still get mowed.
A challenge for police is that the law regarding vehicles left in traffic is utterly vague. Loading and unloading, which is allowed, is in the eye of the beholder. However, municipal governments in New York State and around the country have found legal ways to deal with this.
South Fork elected officials must take steps to promote greater safety and good order. Not that long ago, an East Hampton laborer was literally cut off at the knees between an equipment trailer and a passing car. Roads here are already too chaotic for officials to continue to look the other way. Law enforcement just needs the right tools to make it happen. Examples of rules designed to keep roads open are many. Here is how it works in other places:
New York State Law gives localities the right to exclude trucks, commercial vehicles, and vehicles with trailers from roadways under their jurisdiction, other than those involved in pickup or delivery. Further, the law provides for exclusion from certain roads of vehicles greater than a specified weight, length, or height. Putting these into action, the Village of Nyack, N.Y., prohibits all vehicles with a body weight greater than 2,000 pounds from parking anywhere at any time unless loading, unloading, or involved in infrastructure work. Of course, Nyack’s strict rule would seem amusingly excessive here; for one, a Tesla Cybertruck weighs more than 6,600 pounds unladen, but it underscores what can be done within the state framework.
Garden City caps vehicles above 8,000 pounds gross weight from its streets. Farther afield, the State of Virginia allows counties and towns to enact commercial-vehicle parking bans, including specifically, “any trailer or semitrailer used for transporting landscaping or lawn-care equipment whether or not such trailer or semitrailer is attached to another vehicle.” Los Angeles takes on loading and unloading by banning any commercial vehicle or any other vehicle greater than 22 feet long from residential streets. And guess what — the Los Angeles lawns get mo wed, too.
In Miami-Dade County, Fla., the loading and unloading problem is addressed by setting a one-hour time limit. Miami-Dade also makes property owners ultimately responsible for violations, with fines starting at $500 for a first offense. Parking regulations have even reached the Supreme Court, which upheld local government goals of reducing noise and traffic hazards and maintaining neighborhood character.
Just how contradictory current town and village practice is can be illustrated in one simple dichotomy. Leave an ordinary sedan or crossover in the middle of a traffic lane while you go to the beach for an hour and you would not be surprised to find your vehicle ticketed, if not towed away. Do the same in a massive landscaping rig and all is swell, at least as far as the police are concerned. It is well past the time when this risky imbalance should have been corrected. Governments elsewhere have shown that it can be done –- and how.