In the business of potholes, when the weather is coldest is actually when things really heat up.

We are talking heated emotions over damages to vehicles from potholes. And heated pressure on road crews and politicians. Sometimes, a hot asphalt mix is used to repair the potholes found in highways to fix them. But in the coldest environs, a temporary cold patch mix is more often used for pothole repair. Unfortunately, temporary cold patch mix often needs to be refilled just a week or two later.

“The problem with the cold patch material, it is a temporary fix,” said Doug Fischer, Anoka County (Minnesota) Highways Engineer, to a local newspaper.  “On a high volume road, that may only last a couple of days. It seems like a pothole never gets fixed. [But] it gets fixed five or ten times.”

Car insurance rates are typically set according to drivers’ ages, occupations, credit scores, home ownership and levels of education, in addition to moving traffic violations and accident records.

It has never been practical to observe how exactly a driver would, say, handle an open stretch of road at 3 a.m. Or for that matter, how he or she might negotiate a pothole-ridden boulevard in rush hour.

Not until now, anyway. Insurance companies are beginning to offer a different option to drivers, applying wireless technology which records and rewards them for how they actually drive on a day-to-day basis. Industry experts predict it to be a wave of the future in auto insurance, while others see it has potential to cut auto emissions with reduced driving overall.

Chicago’s most trusted meteorologist, Tom Skilling, dares to guide the 8 million people in the greater Chicago metro area through some of the country’s most harsh and unpredictable weather. From his perch as chief weathercaster on WGN-TV and the Chicago Tribune, he is the point of first consult every morning for those who plan to venture outside – spring, summer and fall, but most especially, in winter. The frigid season of 2010-2011 is expected to be no different.

And while the nature of what he does is based on winds and moisture and pressure systems miles above the earth’s surface, his focus of course is on how it affect people on the ground. That includes the ground itself – and road pavement – as in how potholes form and affect traffic.