PennDOT crew paints road line over dead raccoon

WPXI ^ | August 9, 2012

[rightwingintelligentsia]

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — A Pennsylvania Department of Transportation official says a crew couldn't avoid painting over a dead raccoon when they put new double-yellow lines on a western Pennsylvania road last week.

But the Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown reports Thursday that a motorist pointed out the mistake before it could be cleaned up.

Sean McAfee tells the newspaper he almost wrecked his motorcycle because he was laughing so hard when he saw the freshly painted road kill in Johnstown on Aug. 2.

[DPMD]

This is what you get when you let the public service union workers out without their seven supervisors.

[coffeecup]

Not My Job

[cripplecreek]

And no foreman was on the job to remove it.

Yeah, we’ll never survive if unions go the way of the dinosaur. /s

[rarestia]

[DManA]

Again? This exact thing happened a couple years ago and it was a big deal. Is someone staging these things?

[DManA]

Again? This exact thing happened a couple years ago and it was a big deal. Is someone staging these things?

[Opinionated Blowhard]

PennDOT spokesman John Ambrosini says paint crews know to avoid such animals and usually have a foreman on the job who clears any dead animals off the road before the paint-spraying truck equipment passes by. This crew didn't have a foreman and the equipment was too big to turn around in traffic, remove the animal and repair the paint.

Well, they could have waited a couple hours -- on the clock -- for a foreman to show up -- at overtime rates -- to kick or shovel the dead racoon out of the way.

Seriously, this is beyond any parody of union work rules that I could imagine.

[KarlInOhio]

The poor raccoon was a political moderate: in the middle of the road with a yellow stripe down its back and very, very dead.

[advertising guy]

it’s a damn possum, not a raccoon.......idiots

to a lib, it’s a female deer

[ArrogantBustard]

Has nobody ever thought to put a wedge or plow blade in front of the spray head?

It seems the obvious solution ...

[Tallguy]

Perry County (PA) Recipes

[AngelesCrestHighway]

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Has nobody ever thought to put a wedge or plow blade in front of the spray head?

Bite your tongue! That would mean less union jobs. I mean, what would the foreman do if they did that????

[SnuffaBolshevik]

"it’s a damn possum, not a raccoon.......idiots"

The photo in post #5 doesn't have anything to do with this story.

That pic is several years old.

[Calvin Locke]

Is someone staging these things?

About a decade ago, a MA DPW supervisor would toss a fake deer carcass on a highway median, just before rush hour.

The calls would come in, and wouldn't you know it, it would be at the end of the day, and he and his crew would be on overtime to go remove the "hazard".

[woodbutcher1963]

Most of the painting trucks are actually owned by private companies. They are contracted by the state to paint the lines on the highways.

I knew a guy who owned a company out of NY state.
He had crews painting lines all over the northeastern US.
He did mostly interstate highways. His crews were non union.
Those painting trucks are very expenisive. He lived in a very large house on the shore of Lake Erie. My friend had the contract to do his landscaping/lawn care of his home.

[Never on my watch]

Has nobody ever thought to put a wedge or plow blade in front of the spray head?

That would put a union employee out of work.

This crew didn't have a foreman and the equipment was too big to turn around in traffic, remove the animal and repair the paint.

I guess they don't even look in front of the machine before they drive forward if a foreman isn't there. This is pathetic.

[Mister Da]

These local news station’s web sites can be so crappy. Here you have a story that SCREAMS for a picture, yet no picture. Doesn’t ANYONE at the station own a camera phone? Duh!

[rarestia]

That isn’t the picture from the site. That’s just one I pulled from a web search.

The site doesn’t have a picture of the offending raccoon.