A locked gate on your driveway? Or not...

i have a gate and a lock at the road. my driveway is 3/4 mile of dirt road that was made with a dozer. in good weather it is passable, prolly 3/4ths of the time.

i can take care of myself. no phone to call out anyway

LOL How do you know for sure? Maybe when you are away he tends HIS pot farm on your place?

This is one of those topics where one size does NOT fit all. Firstly it makes no difference what you do or how when it's a family member that kills a person(s). There is no defense against that anymore than you can defend yourself against an earthquake. It just happens.

Each of us has to evaluate our own circumstances and do what we think serves us best. In my case, yes, my gates (two sets at different ends of the driveway)are padlocked. I have a preschooler next door(the one I almost shot a couple of years ago when she came over unannounced and came in my house!), I also have a pond and I sometimes have foster dogs here that I don't know well and so couldn't predict what they might do if a kid came over....so, my gates are padlocked because of possible danger to her from the foster dogs and me and the deep water in the pond.

I also think that although someone determined can just go over my fence they can't carry much out unless they get through the gates. Having at least three Cattle dogs(and sometimes more)plus locked gates here discourages casual theft.

As far as needing help in calling 911 in case of a fall or serious break in etc. I'd call any of my neighbors first. They are within 1 minute of me, they are all well armed(as am I), they know dogs, are intelligent and know how to get through a locked gate....a 911 call would work certainly but it does take at least 30 to 45 minutes for them to get here from town.

I believe that anyone who lives "way out" should have at least two neighbors on their speed dial. Then the neighbors can call 911 if needed.

Just my 2 cents. LQ

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Swim the Sea,
Drink the Wild Air"

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"There is no such thing as bad weather, only inadequate clothing." D. Duck

What a defeatest attitude I suppose that the reason may die in earth quakes andsome in family scawbles.

A few years ago I walked in on a family dispute just as a cousin started to wave a gun.
I bagged him with a baseball bat.
Ida used a lamp if the bat hadnt been handy.
When he started to get up I told him to stay down till the cops got here.
so I had to knock him upside the head.
when he again tryed get the gun I hit his arm with the bat.
Mean while everybody in the family was telling me to lay off or actively fighting me.
The cops got there and privatly told me I had done good.But the family ostrazied me.
Last year he killed a dog ,his girlfriend and then himself. Everyone said it was a complete surprize.

Our gate isn't locked but our doors are. If I or someone in this house should call 911, and the doors were locked when they arrived, I would want them to break in. Like a friend who laid on the floor for 2 days waiting for help. Her door was locked when she went to bed and she would have graciously wanted someone to break in to help her. In her case she couldn't get to the phone. I would think a 911 call should receive a response regardless if the caller stayed on the line, noise was heard or even if they denied there was a problem if 911 called back. Incidents have been reported where the husband took the phone and denied there was a problem only to find a wife dead or seriously hurt. Haven't you heard of children making a 911 call that saved a life? Much easier to replace a broken lock, door, etc than a life. Jklady

I belong to a VFD and have had to cut chains (not the lock) to gain access to a fire and have had to kick in doors to gain access to someone who needed medical help and could not get to the door. You need to do what you need to do in an emerency. Most of the time you don't have time to think about it.

In this particular case, my understanding is that the murderers locked the gate when they left. A couple of other family members who had arrived were gunned down after the intial family. Said gate was not locked at the time of the shootings.
Everyone was already dead when authorites arrived.
As for the co-worker sent to check; could have climbed gate or knew another way in. Obviously, the woman of the house was a dependable employee. Would your employer check in on you? Also, it is quite possible that employer knew of some problems.
As for the disconnected 911 call, I bet there will a full investigation on that as well. They should always be followed up on!

I would trust the authorites to ram that gate if I were in any life threatening position.

Gates, like locks, are only for honest people. Bad guys know how to bypass locks, and gates.

My uber wealthy neighbors decided they needed gates on all access roads to their estates... and fences... wanted me to chip in on both... since my trees very rarely 'wander away', I felt I didn't really need any fences. They were concerned with trespassers... I politely told them a gate wasn't an obstacle (five minutes with a wrench to undo the bolts, and a snip with a bolt cutter and the gate is gone) and anyone with a leatherman can remove a fence in seconds, and drive right in.

If you do have a gate, like WIHH and others mentioned, it's just a sign that there's probably no one home, and there's something valuable behind the gate.

If you have troubles with thieves, casually mention you're going away on vacation to someone standing nearby, or near a busy body, and then lock your gate, hide your vehicle, and wait!!! One of my aunt's finally figured this out.... one of her meth head great nephew was borrowing stuff when they were gone... caught em redhanded one weekend when they were supposed to be "gone"...

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Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Hindsight is 20/20. Some of you are talking about calling 911 and telling the operator what the problem is and also having a locked gate or the local fire dept. getting to a fire and a locked gate or fence is blocking the way. You know there is a problem and the emergency personnel knows that someone needs help so there is nothing to do except go thru the gate or fence to render assistance. In this situation what they responded to was a 911 hangup where no other facts were know,just that a lot of noise in the background of a possible party. If the police had busted thru the gate and tore everything down and no emergency existed they would have been in a heap of trouble. This incident was horrible but the people we already dead before the officers arrived so their presence would not have stopped this crime. This was a situation where the officers were d_ _ ed if they did or d_ _ ed if they didn't.

I don,t shut my gate or lock it, but I have a drive way alarm when it sounds I get the shot gun 12 gauge pump that is loaded with buck shot. I have 2 yard lights that makes this place look like High Noon.

We lock the double 16'-0" gates when we are home and when gone. The only time they are open is when big equipment comes in to work -- seed drill, CAT, etc.

Alex

Two big dogs seem to help.

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We have 6 gates/locks on all of the roads "in" to our properties and we keep all of them closed and locked at all times. Guests in Cabins are told to keep gates locked all the time. Since gates are closed all the time, no one knows who is where on the properties, and since various vehicles are here and there, it looks like someone is here. Police / Fire people say they would just cut off locks in emergency and did so to one gate during a fire in the forest next to us - they just cut off one of our locks to get to the fire side but they helped put it back later. Two close neighbors have keys to our locks and we have keys to theirs.

My gates stays locked all the time, my personal preference. My dog is my second line of defense, my locked doors my third, and my guns are my last line of defense, although I reserve the right to change or alter these preferences at any time.

I would hope emergency services would come through my gate on a 911 call, and I'm pretty sure if they thought it was a legit call, they'd make every effort to do that. But if they didn't, I would understand. Who is willing to pay the extra taxes for all the extra manpower that is gonna be required to follow up on all these 911 hangups? I listen to the scanner sometimes and it's unbelievable how many 911 hangups and false alarms on security systems that these folks go chasing after. How many times would any normal person do that before it begins to lose it's sense of urgency?

If you're in the woods cutting wood, no cell phone, and cut you're leg off, should the neighbors have noticed that your saw hadn't been running for awhile? Shouldn't they have stopped what they were doing and had the ambition and energy to come looking for you? They must be a lazy lot of loafers.

Me, I choose to live back in the sticks with few neighbors. I lock my gates to say "I really dont want you here unless I invite you". There is some risk to that. I accept that.

I used to be a volunteer firefighter in a fairly rural area. Locked gates did not stop us... though we did charge one guy for the damage ramming the gate did to the fire engine on an unwarranted call. Locked doors didn't stop us either. We assumed that if 911 was dialed there was someone somewhere at that location who needed help and we kicked doors, cut locks and distracted dogs until we found that person or somebody told us it was all a mistake... and sometimes the sheriff nosed around even then, domestic disputes being what they are.

The deputies in this case saw/ heard the dispatcher's evaluation of "party noise" and decided it was a crank call not worth their time.

The county policy were I was required that somebody find the phone and find out why it dialed 911, as mentioned in the story. Also policy required that all 911 calls be responded to code 3. Crank calls got a citation from the sheriff or fire marshal, accidental calls got a warning and lecture.

I don't think that's the case.

If the police were chasing a criminal who hopped your fence, they would enter your property to pursue him. If a wildfire was burning and the FD needed access to your property to fight it they would cut your lock. If a patient is unconscious when found the assumption is that they would want to be assisted and the medics don't wait for permission. Calling 911 is an indication that you want help and locked doors and gates shouldn't stand in the way. If you don't want your lock cut, don't call 911.

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For those with a locked gate - how does the meter reader gain access?

Don't know about anyone else but I phoned in my meter reading. Meter reader was really glad not to have to come out.

Where I lived before, the meter reader had a "thing" he could point at the box from the gate and get a reading. He didn't have to even get out of his truck.

I don't know if that would work here, though (probably not) because the meter isn't in clear view of where the gate would be. That will be something I have to find out from my utility company, I guess, before I put the permanent gate in. I have a "temporary" gate right now (just field fence attached to a t-post and hooked on the corner fence post) that the meter reader just goes through.

Janis

Your neighbor? He knows your routine, and the vehicles...Even if he does nothing but watch and has no intentions of wrongdoing. We are creatures of habit, unfortunately at times.
IMHO..

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We have a gate but it isn't really locked..it opens via remote from our cars. It's snowed open right now but we do usually keep it closed because it adds an extra barrier if our horses were to get out of the pasture. It also prevents solicitors and religious groups from pestering us. Which they do even though we live in the middle of nowhere and have no trespassing signs and big dogs.