A man who drove his truck through wet road paint wants the contractor painting the road to cover the costs.
It was about 10:00 a.m. Tuesday when Michael Foriest drove his brand new Ford F-150 pickup down Cotton Lane. He came over a hill and first noticed cones every 100 to 150 feet on the center line.
"I came up on slow traffic," said Foriest. "I could see that up ahead of them, just looking past and it was a school bus and I couldn't see that well. I had to wait for curves. To see ahead that there were some trucks ahead, with flashing lights."
Those trucks were vehicles from Kerr Brothers, a contractor working for Williamson County Highway Department. Two vehicles rode ahead of the bus. One was painting the yellow center double lines, the other placing down cones.
Foriest said when he realized the paint was likely wet, he tried to stay in the center of the lane as much as possible. He didn't know anything was wrong until he got home.
"I looked at my truck and noticed there was some yellow paint under the fender wells and up on the side of it and up under the edge of my truck and paint," Foriest said. "The paint had already hardened and it just looks like there's not way to get this paint off and it's from the center line striping that they were doing."
Foriest said he tried to call the county and then the contractor. Both said they couldn't help him. Foriest believes he ran over the center line before he could see the work crew and therefore it's the contractor's job to cover the cost to fix his paint.
However, a representative for the contracting company said they aren't responsible for the damage. The cones are meant to warn drives of roadwork and the contractor's vehicles have signs that warn paint may be wet on the road.
Another representative for Williamson County said there isn't a policy to cover something like this.
It's likely Foriest will have to turn to his insurance company to cover the damage. He can file a claim under his comprehensive policy, but other than that he's out of luck.
"I'm not finding anybody who can help me with this, other than saying they're not responsible," said Foriest.
