NOT POTHEADS, STUPID……POTHOLES!

(Ezine Articles, Harry Coombs, Virginia.gov)

(Chicago Tribune, Christian Farr, POTHOLE.info)

(abcNEWS, Geetika Rudra, Huff Post, Geoffrey Anderson)

(Frazer Chronicle)

Holy semolina, did you see the size and depth of that pothole, it could ‘a swallowed up a small foreign car, (on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d rate that a 12). Every stinking winter the these huge holes appear almost like magic to haunt my pick-up truck. My tires take a beating, my under carriage gets whipped, and my back needs a chiropractic adjustment by spring-time, can I get a hand…..Dr. John?

Potholes aren’t only uncomfortable, and at times dangerous to navigate, they cost millions in car repairs each and every year. I’ve owned my pick-up truck for several years now, and I can tell you first hand that this year, I’ll need some body repair from my truck doctor…..on my truck.

I never figured that there was a scientific study done on potholes and the damage that is done to a vehicle (but I should have figured there’d be one) anyways, an engineer with Crossbow Technology, a company that makes wireless sensors for the automotive and aviation industries, says this little devise will measure the amount of force, or Gs, on car wheels every time a car hits a pothole. Gs are what you feel when riding a roller coaster.

According to the study and report by the national transportation research group Trip Net, San Jose, California has the roughest roads in the country. Now figure this, if San Jose, California, (where temperatures don’t have the drastic changes) has the roughest roads in the United States, a pocked marked road in Chicago, Illinois, where some of the biggest potholes in captivity exist, your vehicle is doomed.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE

Talk about being taken aback, that would be me, a recent study of the country’s top roughest roads was conducted, and the Midwest was far down the list, in fact, only one Midwestern city made the cut. The following cities across the country make up the top ten cities where riding in a vehicle is not only an adventure, but proves…..(over the long haul,) to be devastatingly expensive;

 1. San Jose, California

 2. Los Angeles, California

 3. San Francisco, California

 4. Kansas City, Missouri

 5. New Orleans, Louisiana, (pre-Katrina)

 6. San Diego, California

 7. Sacramento, California

 8. St. Louis, Missouri

 9. Omaha, Nebraska

10. New York City

Very interesting, half of the tough-riding roads in America are located in California, I’ve had a theory for years now that involves the road beds (the dirt that is laid down before cement is poured, asphalt doesn’t count) are made up of rubble from the former road plus some fill. The road bed doesn’t have enough time to settle, isn’t reinforced well enough, and might even have inferior concrete…..it’s just a theory…..but it could be true.

INJURIES CAN BE SEVERE

There have been accounts of neck injuries suffered by drivers hitting an unseen pothole…..causing them to hit their heads on their car’s ceiling, and suffering as much as a sprained neck. Back injuries, knee injuries, (potholes causing a drivers knee to strike the undercarriage of their dash-boards,) and back sprains and spasms, it can be brutal on the roads.

There have even been cases of vehicle (motorcycle) operators being killed after hitting a pothole, losing control and either going off-road, or worse, hitting an oncoming vehicle. In California, the family of a dead motorcyclist received a $1 million dollar settlement from the state of California in a wrongful death suit.

Heavy road use coupled with a lack of repair and maintenance funds in warmer climate states are the root causes of the tough-rough roads. And experts say that “damaged roads lead to damaged cars,” do ya think. I hope these EXPERTS weren’t paid excessively for that statement. The same EXPERTS continued that “drivers end up paying millions of dollars in vehicle repairs,” a fact that I’m sure doesn’t escape the body shops and mechanics that open repair shops near what can only be called pothole alley, that would be Route 5 either north or south in western California.

These same EXPERTS had an addition (word to the wise,) “drivers should avoid potholes if you can, or at the very least slow down.” Also, “maintain the proper pressure in your tires, it can lessen the impact on your car.” That’s great advice…..but what about my undercarriage? And also, what if it’s late at night, or even heavy traffic and the guy ahead of you swerves to avoid the dreaded PH (pothole,) and you either don’t, or never do what the guy ahead of you does…..either way, as an auto driver…..you and your car are screwed.

IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING…..AND IT AIN’T BASEBALL

It isn’t baseball, but like baseball, it does happen every spring, new road construction projects, these projects put people to work, and are worth millions and millions of dollars. I was an over the road semi-truck driver for a number of years, and like every other driver that I knew, dreaded driving during the entire road construction season…..late March to early December.

There were back-ups, detours, missed delivery and pick-up times, and unusually rough roads, I was always thankful that I wasn’t an owner-operator…..a blow tire, broken axel, or damage to…..yup, you guessed it, my undercarriage.

I gotta laugh every time I see a new construction project going up; it’s like looking forward and seeing the outline of a new set of get-on, or get-off ramps, or, like here in Green Bay, Wisconsin, round-abouts. And you turn around and look at the streets you’re leaving (city, or what they call surface streets) and you wonder, (at least I wonder) when in hell they’ll be repairing the old streets that I was just on.

It’s estimated that it would cost over $50 billion dollars, and the project would take at least 20 years to repair the country’s existing roads, and the repairs that they need. But hells no, let’s slap some new concrete down, so in 20 or 30 years, it’ll need repairing, and some impotent bastard like me can sit at his computer and bitch and moan.

&%+@$# HAVE A NICE DAY! &=**@&?