Zig like a butterfly, Zag like a Bee

April 1, 2015

BAM! Thunderous shudder as my poor car recovers from a tire suffering a direct hit from a pothole camouflaged in the rainy street. Again.

SHEIT!

How many more of these assaults can my poor car take before a tie rod snaps, a rim gets bent or a tire gets flattened?

I feel like a soldier in enemy terrain. Eyes are peeled for potholes, some an annoyance, others large enough to damage tank treads. Thousands of these road zits have broken out in the last month, result of an historic and brutal winter, tons of road salt, water penetrating every little crack in the pavement, then freezing, expanding, breaking down the macadam into what looks like a street in downtown Tikrit. What’s worse - every time one of us ka-bams into one, we make it bigger.

Police must think the entire driving population has just left a Super Bowl celebration, swerving around like piña colada-loaded tourists doing a conga line on their first night of a Caribbean vacation. The car in front of me does a quick zig to the left, I maneuver my car into a quick swivel and follow the leader.

The city of Boston has a website dedicated exclusively to potholes. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (DOT) has a hotline for them. Virtually every town around Boston has a way to report them. Somerville mayor Joe Curtatone says that some 90 percent of the Commonwealth’s roads are the responsibility of individual municipalities, and that each one handles them differently. Proof? It takes 100 yards of road travel to discover you’ve entered a different municipality. The zig and zag quotient often rises or falls  precipitously.

Repairs are attempted. Cold patches, hot patches… neither makes a difference. Filling the potholes with frozen jello might have the same long-term effect. They’ll get chewed up and return to menace us like chain saw killers in a couple of days.

The most treacherous are the ones that look like puddles.  They could substitute for wading pools for small children. They could cost you a week’s pay in damages. Reaction time in heavy traffic is about two nanoseconds. You just hope the car in front of you is paying attention to the road. If it looks like it’s been hit with a rocket, you’ll ride over the same crater before you can react.

Remedies: develop the equivalent of muscle memory to avoid the most weapons-grade potholes, or drive at the speed of a tortoise and suffer the wrath of cars behind you (this is Boston, after all, where cautious driving habits are taken as a personal affront on one’s ability to get from here to there without delay).

Or take the T (a very distant last resort if you don't mind spending time waiting for Godot in order to save your car’s suspension). 

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Comments

[Jeff]

What's a pot hole?

[Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. aka pt at large]

Surely you jest, you lived here long enough to know that!

[Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.]

Our issue is avoiding those dead palm fronds that blow onto the road. He he he

[Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. aka pt at large]

You really know how to hurt a guy! About a million residents up here in New England would love to have such frondy problems. Trust me, we dreamed about sunny Florida every one of those 15 consecutive days in February when the temps were below 32 degrees F.
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/02/24/finishing-out-the-coldest-month-ever-recorded-in-new-england/

[Rebecca Wilson]

Love the subject line! Well-written, timely piece.

[KJones]

I'm with you - muscle memory to avoid the potholes.

[Susan Lyman]

This is fun Paul, I work in PVD so am quite familiar with this new kind of driving, rather, swerving!

[john]

The only POT HOLE that I know is what,s left after the first bite in my wifes Home made POT PIE...

Sorry i can,t relate..I live in Florida..

[Jeff Piccoli]

April 11, 2015
Our issue is avoiding those dead palm fronds that blow onto the road. He he he