The record indicates that the township mows once per year to reduce snow accumulation and to provide better visibility of deer. While the township inspects roads for sight distance and obstructions, it is looking for obstructed signs, not tall grass at intersections. The township mowing policy specifically does not include mowing sight triangles at intersections. The township's creation of its mowing, inspection, and sight-distance policy is the type of conduct that the legislature intended to remove from the judicial sphere because it involves the balancing of safety and economic considerations. The record is clear that the township has limited resources and that it needed to balance limited resources with safety considerations in arriving at its annual mowing policy.
Statutory immunity applies to the township's sight triangle policy.
Similarly, the county's decision not to cut sight triangles is also protected by statutory immunity because, due to limited financial resources, the county prioritized which roads would receive sight triangle cutting and the intersection in question was not mowed because it was deemed a low-volume, low priority road. If my funds are unlimited, you might not see a tree or a blade of grass or a hill in a road or a curve in the road if we had unlimited funds. Another employee indicated that the county rarely cut sight triangles on low-volume roads because it had all it could handle cutting noxious weeds. The county balanced safety and economic considerations when it placed a low mowing priority on low-volume roads. The county's testimony describes the type of balancing that merits statutory immunity.