Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. V
Were bubblers in fact the benign devices some of you think they are, the legislature would not have imposed the duty to warn the public of their presence and operation.
The law seemss clear: if the legislature imposes a duty to warn, and that duty is violated and damage results, liability may typically adhere.
FWIW, the piercing light I suggested for future use would be facing the lake only, and not visible to the bubbler owner or others on his side of the lake: but folks on the ice would certainly be able to see it, which is the whole idea.
This is a tragedy, and I agree that all of the salient facts are not known, including the snowmobiler's health and state of sobriety at the time of the incident.
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From the Union Leader article it isn't clear to me that the bubbler was the problem, afterall it was the jetty he apparently hit. Whether there would have been open water w/o bubbler on that night and whether it would have made a difference if it had been iced over are open questions. For all I know the victim may have been incapcitated and frozen to death had the bubbler not been there.
NH doesn't require lights or warning signs on the docks and jetties projecting into the lake, not in the summer nor in the winter. As has been pointed out there are numerous natural and unpredictable hazards that occur on the frozen lake (pressure ridges come to mind). Common sense dictates that you don't overdrive your lights for that reason alone. In this case, sledding during a snowstorm, it's debatable whether any reasonable warning system would have made a difference.