Don't make the mistake of supposing that everything that frightens your horse or causes an accident in the highway is a defect for which the town is liable. If a town negligently suffers snowdrifts to remain in the road for a long time, and thereby you are prevented from passing over the road to attend to your business, or, in making an attempt to pass, your horses get into the snow and you are put to great trouble, expense, and loss of time in extricating them, you are remediless unless you receive some physical injury in your person or property; as the remedy provided by the statutes, in case of defects in the highway, does not extend to expenses or loss of time unless they are incident to such physical injury. In other words, the statute gives no one a claim for damages sustained in consequence of inability to use a road.[113] And so a town or city is not obliged to light the highways, and an omission to do so is not a defect in the way for which it is liable.[114] [113] 13 Met. 297; 6 Cush. 141. [114] 136 Mass. 419. Nor is the mere narrowness and crookedness of a road a defect within the meaning of the statutes. Towns and cities are only required to keep highways in suitable repair as they are located by the public authorities, and they have no right to go outside the limits defined by the location in order to make the road more safe and convenient for travel. If a highway is so narrow or crooked as to be unsafe, the proper remedy is by an application to the county commissioners to widen or straighten it.[115] Nor is smooth and slippery ice, in country road or city street, a defect for which a town or city is liable, if the road whereon the ice accumulates is reasonably level and well constructed. In our climate the formation of thin but slippery ice over the whole surface of the ground is frequently only the work of a few hours; and to require towns and cities to remove this immediately or at all is supposing that the legislature intended to cast upon them a duty impossible to perform, and a burden beyond their ability to carry.[116] [115] 105 Mass. 473. [116] 12 Allen, 566; 102 Mass. 329; 104 Mass. 78.