Most drivers avoid potholes wherever and however much possible. But others face the problem head-on. For a living. And for laughs.
In April – a prime time for potholes in the wake of late winter/early spring freeze-thaw cycles – a character known as the Pothole Dummy plied the streets of Chicago to see how many potholes he could run over in a five-day stretch. He was successful: 1,110 hits were made over 255 miles, which works out to 4.35 potholes per mile.
Why do such a thing? It was a publicity stunt by Advance Auto Parts, the national retailer serving the aftermarket car-repair industry. Together with parts manufacturers Moog (steering and suspension) and Monroe (shocks and struts), the Dummy sponsors outfitted a 2009 Dodge Charger that already had 100,000 miles under its chassis. New struts and shocks were put on the undercarriage as a way to test their resilience to the abuse.
And boy did they have fun. Take a look at the <a href="https://potholedummy.com/">highlights videos</a> on the Pothole Dummy webpage.
We count the program a success on several points:
Humor – The campaign has multiple videos of the Pothole Dummy himself, comedian Daniel Strauss, who seems to relish the bounces as he hits the deepest potholes he can find. He has guest passengers that include Chicago Bears football players. Potholes in the hypothetical, happening to someone else, are funny (but less so in reality).
Effective PR – The Chicago Tribune, the Minneapolis Egotist, and other news outlets covered the story. Additionally, Strauss had media personalities ride along with him to enjoy (?) the bumpy ride and to stream or live tweet their adventures.
Public service/education – The message throughout is about the cumulative cost of potholes to American motorists, which is $3 billion per year. The program also provides advice on how to do a diagnostic test by feeling how the steering wheel responds after a few hard pothole hits, or do a bounce test, pushing the car down on its corners to see if it springs back in one or two bounces, how to do a "drive park" test to check for buckling in the suspension system, and with the car jacked off the ground how to feel for looseness in a wheel that can indicate bearing problems.
Surprisingly, the car sensor-scoreboard reflected that over five days the "average pothole severity" scored about a 2.2 out of 5. This may be due to the relatively mild winter in the upper Midwest, courtesy of El Niño weather conditions in 2015-2016.
Chicago drivers may beg to differ. Because the only pothole that matters is the one that blew your tire out on your way to work this morning.

Pothole Dummy Laughs Off 1,100 Hard Hits in Chicago

Everyone loves Canada and Canadians. But it seems their potholes are very sad and very neglected.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="The sad heart of the pothole" width="1080" height="608" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O4o8qKfRcJE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Pothole Sadness From Edmonton

Is it possible? Might data science and data analytics help improve our potholed roads?
Applied data science is all around us. It's how Google Maps can recommend routes to take with some ability to predict traffic (because other Google Maps users have tested those routes before you, and GPS tracking records and analyzes the speed of those previous drivers at different times of day and in various road conditions). It's also how spellcheck fixes our words when we mistype or misspell; it's how political campaigns apply their resources in the most effective ways; it's how sports betting works; it's how petroleum reserves and oil pricing is determined; and it's increasingly a part of predicting tomorrow's weather and broader climatic changes over the next 50 years.
Data science can be applied to municipal challenges that include potholes. Pothole.info was contacted by Kyle Polich, co-host of DataSkeptic, to participate in a <a style="color: #3366ff;" href="http://dataskeptic.com/epnotes/potholes.php">podcast</a> that explores where data can tell us about how things work, and, in some cases, how things can work better. Because information is power, right?
We touched on this in the past on Pothole.info. We've included stories about smartphone apps such as <a href=" http://www.pothole.info/2011/03/seeclickfix-more-potholes-fixed-money-saved/">SeeClickFix</a> and <a style="color: #3366ff;" href="http://www.pothole.info/2010/12/citizen-pothole-reporting-via-phone-apps-take-off-but-can-street-maintenance-departments-keep-up/">proprietary reporting systems</a> out of Portland, Oregon, Boston, Massachusetts and elsewhere that help departments of transportation identify where the most critical pavement problems are. Under the right setup, public administrators can look at response times to pothole complaints, and perhaps correlate that with reduced accidents or fewer claims against a city or county for damages to vehicles. If data science can result in smarter, faster repairs at locations that affect the largest numbers of drivers, we count that as a giant leap forward.
Pothole.info editor Russ Klettke participated in the DataSkeptic podcast, along with Ben Berkowitz of SeeClickFix and Chelsea Ursaner of the Los Angeles Open Data Team. It's a thoughtful look at the potential future of potholes and pothole fixes. We're not there yet, but with billions of dollars of road repairs waiting to happen – and lots of accidents (i.e., injuries and deaths, plus expensive repairs) attributed to potholes – there certainly is an economic imperative to push these future concepts along.
&nbsp;

Can Data Science Fix Potholes?

Some people get angry and bitter over the damage that poor pavement causes. But to protect from vehicular damage and accidents, some people take action.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe experience of driving in modern life is very different from the advertising of the 1950s, when singer Dinah Shore sang, "See the USA in your Chevrolet." The camera showed us <a href="https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=boertpylK0M" target="_blank">an open, smooth highway<\/a>, where nary a care should cross the minds of drivers and passengers.<\/p>\nInstead, we today have traffic and potholes and detours. And in place of a perky song there are moments of discontent, frustration and, as is often reported in the news, road rage. One particularly disgruntled driver recorded his epic expletive-undeleted rant on the Internet about a pothole-pocked road in rural Ohio. From an armchair psychologist's perspective, he appears to have <a href="http:\/\/digg.com\/video\/no-one-has-ever-been-as-mad-about-anything-as-this-guy-is-about-potholes" target="_blank">lost his mind<\/a> over bad pavement. (Note, the audio of the video is not for family or workplace settings.)<\/p>\nA University of Maryland sociologist, Philip N. Cohen, wrote about the emotions of the American driving experience some years ago for The Huffington Post. Cohen says that anger, bitterness and fear pervade the driving experience. For example, we might get angry when we switch lanes in slow moving traffic and then our new lane seems even slower. Did we make a bad decision to switch lanes? Or is someone ahead in our lane holding us back?<\/p>\nBitterness comes from such things as when someone cuts us off, taking up 15 feet of road space that we think we are due. Never mind how that small slight has almost no effect on how much time it takes to reach your destination; they took something that was rightfully yours.<\/p>\nFear in traffic is another emotion entirely. It comes from what Cohen says is "the constant danger of accidents [which] heightens our emotional responses to other drivers." We might add how potholes heighten those fears, as rough pavement causes drivers to swerve or else they incur a very expensive car repair from hitting a deep pothole. Cohen adds that this fear of accidents "heightens our emotional responses to other drivers and…directs our anger and bitterness toward the individuals around us."<\/p>\nAdd this emotion: Bureaucratic frustration. This comes in the aftermath of driving incidents when no one is accepting blame or the financial burden.<\/p>\nIn the Buffalo, New York suburb of Tonawanda, one would expect they have the whole pothole-problem scenario all worked out. With huge snowstorms and the freeze-thaw oscillations known to create potholes, drivers there should be skilled at both avoiding potholes and knowing how to get the damage paid for. But in January 2015, no fewer than 15 drivers all managed to hit a bridge joint that popped up on an overpass. Not technically a pothole, the chunk of concrete nonetheless caused thousands of dollars of damage to several of the cars.<\/p>\nThe Buffalo CBS affiliate, WIVB-TV News 4, <a href="http:\/\/wivb.com\/2015\/11\/05\/news-4-investigates-pothole-payouts-rarely-happen\/" target="_blank">investigated claims<\/a> in this and 128 other cases in eight Western New York counties, finding that only 13 had their damages paid for by the state. That means that 116 drivers with significant car damage from poor road conditions were likely left feeling bitter and angry, to say the least.<\/p>\nSome people put their emotions to good use, however. Consider how a group of bar patrons in Hamtramck, Michigan, a Detroit suburb, took matters into their own hands. After a session of complaining about potholes, they pooled resources to buy $120 worth of cold patch asphalt – 17 heavy bags weighing about 900 pounds – which covered the better part of one block's road crevices. The group started a <a href="https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/8r4m7ukx4m" target="_blank">GoFundMe<\/a> page that has since raised $4,475 to continue the effort.<\/p>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n&nbsp;<\/p>

How Humans Respond Emotionally to Potholes

Tire inflator kits are rapidly replacing the tire in the trunk. They offer some advantages but provide some of their own bumps in the road.
It‚Äôs never a fun surprise when your car hits a pothole and you get a flat tire. In fact, ‚Äúsurprise‚Äù is quite likely not the first word to come out of your mouth.
Even worse, there might be a second discovery for you when you go to your trunk to retrieve the spare tire. Surprise! You don‚Äôt have one! If your car is less than ten years old, it‚Äôs possible the spare was never part of the standard equipment.
Increasingly, in place of spare tires are emergency tire inflator kits, also referred to as ‚Äúcanned tire inflators.‚Äù These are single-use devices that provide a quick but temporary solution to a flat tire. With a combination of solvents, sealants and propellants, the kit‚Äôs nozzle connects to the flat tire‚Äôs valve stem (as one would do with a simple tire inflation) injecting the tube with air and repairing the small puncture. The seal holds long enough for the car to exit the highway and, with luck, travel to a tire replacement shop.
In 2015, 36 percent of the model vehicles sold used tire inflator kits in place of spare tires, bringing the estimated number of vehicles on the road that lack spare tires to 29 million. The advantages include a lower cost overall for the vehicle, as well as improved fuel economy from lower vehicle weight. And not everyone is comfortable with the traditional process of jacking up a vehicle and replacing a wheel; this seems to be generational, with 90 percent of drivers over the age of 35 claiming to know how to change tires. That drops for Millennials, where less than 80 percent in that age group claim to have those skills.
Given the condition of the nation‚Äôs streets, roads and highways, drivers should give some thought to what they would do in the case of a flat. The American Automobile Association (AAA) reports that pothole-caused car damage is very commonplace. ‚ÄúIn the last five years, 16 million drivers across the country have suffered pothole damage to their vehicles,‚Äù says AAA‚Äôs managing director of Automotive Engineering and Repair, John Nielsen. ‚ÄúThe problems range from tire punctures and bent wheels, to more expensive suspension damage.‚Äù The average pothole-related repair costs $300.
Other technologies that can substitute for spare tires are the run-flat tires. These come in at least three varieties: the self-supporting tires, with a fabric inner liner; the self-sealing, with an extra lining that prevents air loss; and auxiliary supported, an additional support ring attached to the wheel (inside) that can carry the weight of the vehicle when air pressure is lost. Each of these together constitutes only about 1 to 3 percent of vehicles worldwide, mostly in military deployment, due to higher per-tire costs.
Several organizations have come out against the use of tire inflator kits as spare tire substitutes. Consumer Reports‚ <a href="http://www.consumerreports.org/cars/spare-tires-are-going-the-way-of-the-dodo-bird/" target="_blank">published a story</a> in 2015 that said this benefits automakers more than consumers. The advocacy publication emphasized how the kits are only applicable to small tread punctures (note: some potholes can cause large tears in tires).
AAA adds that the sealant could potentially damage a tire pressure monitoring sensor. ‚ÄúAAA tested the most common tire inflator kits in today‚Äôs vehicles and found that the units worked well in some scenarios, but they are not a substitute for a spare tire,‚Äù the organization reported. Nielsen adds, ‚ÄúConsumers may mistakenly believe that inflator kits are a one-size-fits-all alternative to installing a spare tire. The reality is these kits can accommodate specific types of tire damage, but having the option to install a spare tire can save stranded drivers time and money.‚Äù
One way to avoid any of these surprises is to avoid potholes. But with the continued under-funding of road repair on a federal level as well as in many states and municipalities, that‚Äôs more of a wish than a strategy. Rough pavement everywhere is surprising to no one.

No Spare Tires and Lots of Potholes

Damages to cars from potholes can cost more than most households have on hand for emergencies. The cost of slow traffic and accidents may be even greater.<\/strong><\/p>\nAccording to the American Automobile Association (AAA), motorists are shelling out $6.4 billion per year in car repairs due to potholes. That's just to take care of flat tires, bent rims, poor alignments, damaged shocks and struts, cracked catalytic converters – and the occasional deployment of an air bag, which can run $2500 or more per incident.<\/p>\nThose are direct costs, something that hits any motorist hard when rubber or metal meet a road crevice. But the costs of poorly maintained and therefore deficient roads and bridges have multiple indirect costs as well: road congestion and detours can add to travel time, a loss of personal time to commuting workers and added expense to businesses that ship and deliver hard goods via surface transportation.<\/p>\nNow, consider the financial burden that poor pavement quality and resultant damages place on the broad swath of the population that lives paycheck to paycheck. According to a <a href="http:\/\/www.bankrate.com\/finance\/consumer-index\/money-pulse-1215.aspx?ic_id=Top_Financial%20News%20Center_link_3" target="_blank">survey by Bankrate.com <\/a>released in early 2016, 63 percent of Americans do not have as much as $1,000 in spare cash to cover financial setbacks.<\/strong> Even among households with $75,000 or more in annual earnings, only about half (54 percent) have enough money on hand to cover $1,000 or more in damages to their vehicles. A portion of them (15 percent of the total) said they could lean on family or friends for the cash, and an equal portion have access to a credit card to cover emergencies. For others, repairs for the car they need to get to work might be financed by a payday loan or car title loan – at very high interest rates.<\/p>\nRoad conditions and relative wherewithal vary by state and region, of course. Consider the driver in Alabama, a state where 18.6 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and where the per capita income is $23,680 (2013 data). The state ranks as the fourth poorest in the U.S. behind New Mexico, Louisiana and Mississippi (Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and West Virginia rank just above Alabama).<\/p>\nNext, note how Birmingham, Alabama roads were ranked 20th<\/sup> worst among major cities (500,000+ population) nationally in 2015 by TRIP, a nonprofit transportation research organization. Forty-three percent of that city's roads are in poor condition.<\/p>\nNow, put Alabama's relatively low income against what AASHTO – the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials – finds about the condition of the state's roads and related costs. "Alabama drivers pay more than $1,200 per year due to higher vehicle operating costs, traffic crashes and congestion-related delays [due to rough roads]," the organization announced in a 2014 press release. Those are steep costs in a state where income is limited.<\/p>\nThe release went on to say, "increased investment in transportation improvements at the local, state and federal levels could relieve traffic congestion, improve road and bridge conditions, boost safety, and support long-term economic growth in Alabama." It also noted that individual drivers waste fuel due to congested roads, and that non-interstate traffic fatalities are double that of the interstates; poor pavement conditions are implicated in about a third of all traffic fatalities.<\/p>\nAllocating sufficient amounts of money to fix the potholes and bridges seems like a bargain, all things considered.<\/p>\n

Poor Pavement Hits Lower-Income Americans Hard

Ford intentionally built a very nasty stretch of pavement to test vehicles under pothole conditions. It&rsquo;s a success &ndash; but is that a good thing?<\/strong><\/p>\nThis just in from the Department of Irony: Ford Motor Company built a road that is intentionally potholed. What&rsquo;s more, it&rsquo;s 50 miles in length and actually is designed to replicate how cars meet carnage from bad pavement in 25 different countries.<\/p>\nThe purposefully bad road also has its own gigantic hairdryer.<\/p>\nThe official name of the road is the Lommel Proving Ground, and it is located in Lommel, Belgium, midway between Ford of Europe&rsquo;s development centers and production plants in Germany and the United Kingdom. It&rsquo;s where cars are tested under various trying conditions, which include cobblestone streets still common in parts of Europe, rutted avenues found in China, and with speed bumps that evidently are used extensively in Brazil.<\/p>\nThe &ldquo;hairdryer&rdquo; is a jet-powered blower system (also used at airports) to remove ice and snow when the Lommel track needs drier conditions for a test. Parts of the track include freshwater and saltwater pools to replicate watery conditions. The facility was first built in the 1960s and has been expanded over the decades since. From above, the serpentine course looks like a maze of curves and straightaways within a roughly oval-outline area. The public is not permitted within its confines for safety and competitive reasons.<\/p>\nTo American drivers, one might ask why the company goes to such lengths to replicate what they encounter daily on trips to work, shops and schools. According to AASHTO (the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officers), more than 28 percent of the major urban roads (Interstates, freeways and arterial routes) have pavement that is in &ldquo;substandard condition and provides an unacceptably rough ride to motorists&rdquo; (as reported in Bumpy Roads Ahead: American&rsquo;s Roughest Rides and Strategies to Make our Roads Smoother<\/em>, July 2015). Accounting for major urban and rural roads, AASHTO says only 42 percent of roads in the U.S. are in good condition.<\/p>\nWhat is learned at Ford&rsquo;s Lommel Proving Ground? Skilled test drivers operate cars that contain seismology-inspired equipment that monitors the reaction of vehicles&rsquo; suspension system and other components. Data from the tests are fed back to car designers and engineers to develop vehicles that can better handle the jarring effects of uneven pavement. Reportedly one model, the Fusion V6 Sport sedan, is equipped with a computer-controlled shock absorber system that counteracts the effects of rough roads. According to RoadAndTrack.com, &ldquo;Fusion&rsquo;s adaptive dampers read road conditions every two milliseconds and when it detects the edge of a pothole, it automatically stiffens the particular wheel&rsquo;s damper to its stiffest setting. Effectively, it allows the Fusion to skip over potholes.&rdquo; The magazine provides a <a href="http:\/\/www.roadandtrack.com\/new-cars\/car-technology\/news\/a28232\/fords-fusion-pothole-skip\/" target="_blank">video of this in action<\/a>, and remarks that &ldquo;in practice and visually, it&rsquo;s fairly incredible.&rdquo;<\/p>\nThe good news then is that cars are being made to be more resilient. The bad news, however, might be that poor pavement and gaping potholes are now reaching a point of acceptance. Which is of little value to all other vehicles that still suffer expensive and dangerous bumps from potholes found just about everywhere.<\/p>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n&nbsp;<\/p>

A Road Built to Be Bad

It isn&#8217;t&nbsp;necessary to choose between space exploration and fixing the roads, bridges and tunnels. For now, the bumps in the road cost drivers the most. 
Donald Trump, the 2016 presidential campaign hopeful, has drawn a line in the asphalt on where he thinks America should be investing: That would be fixing potholes in the streets, not sending rockets into space.
The real estate mogul made these comments in 2015 to a collection of voters in New Hampshire. “In the old days, [NASA] was great,” he said. “Right now, we have bigger problems, you understand that. We have to fix our potholes. We don’t exactly have a lot of money.”
The federal budget currently allocates about $18 billion to the space agency program. The highway bill approved by a bipartisan vote in late 2015 – the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015, also referred as “FAST,” for “Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act” – provides $305 billion for highway, transit and railway programs over five years. Breaking that down into money for highways, it’s $233 billion, or $46 billion per year. Within that, the National Highway Performance Program (NHHP) provides approximately $24.2 billion for such things as reconstruction, resurfacing, restoration, rehabilitation, and preservation of National Highway System roads, bridges and tunnels, in addition to bicycle transportation and pedestrian walkways.
Federal, state, county and city roads aren’t all covered by these expenditures – local and state gas taxes as well as other public funds are needed for some of those potholes.
While we’re doing the math on the costs of deteriorating pavement, insurance companies provide us with some numbers to chew on. Farmers Insurance says there are about a half-million insurance claims for pothole damage every year. But that’s very likely a significant undercount, given how most people have a $1,000 or more deductible on their cars for collision claims within a comprehensive insurance policy. Costs for blown tires, cracked rims and wheel alignments might go upwards of $500, not worth reporting because it counts as a single-driver accident on drivers’ records.
With serious damage from potholes – injuries and even deaths sometimes occur – claims on a policy in turn can raise insurance premiums or cancel a policy altogether if more than one at-fault accident is reported within a limited timeframe (up to three years).
Talk of space exploration and its potential far-off benefits are fair fodder for presidential campaign debates. The vote to authorize transportation spending was refreshingly bipartisan, however. Perhaps this is because potholes are real and make no distinctions between political allegiances – while drivers of all stripes pay for them one blown tire at a time.

NASA or Potholes?

The phenomenon is altering weather patterns across the U.S. – placing new burdens on highway maintenance crews and budgets in dozens of states.<\/strong><\/p>\nMuch as meteorologists predicted, the el niño<\/em> winter of 2015-2016 is turning into a monster. The immediate effects of heavy rain and flip-flopped temperatures – it was warmer in Boston (69 degrees F) and New York City (72 degrees F) on Christmas Day 2015 than in many parts of the Southwestern US (e.g., Phoenix was in the 50s) – allowed some to enjoy the outdoors more than is normal, while floods and tornadoes wreaked havoc and loss of life in Mississippi, Texas and Missouri.<\/p>\nThe extreme moisture in Texas and surrounding states was followed with a wave of EF-4 classified tornadoes. Hours later winter weather conditions stretched from Texas on through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois. Severe rain covered much of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.<\/p>\nWhat will be obvious to anyone driving a car, truck or bus in the months to come in almost every region is that potholes caused by weather will be more numerous. Those warm holiday temps were quickly followed in the new year with dips below freezing in most northeastern and Great Lakes region cities, causing the freeze-thaw cycles that are a primary cause of asphalt breakdown. Meanwhile, extreme moisture and flooding, sometimes mixed with freezing temperatures, are conditions that also undermine streets, roads and highways.<\/p>\nThe truth of pavement, potholes and weather is that in the aftermath of heavy moisture and temperature fluctuations potholes are just about inevitable. Highway superintendents are familiar with this, particularly those in the northern plains and northeastern states where the thermometer might dance a few degrees above and below 32 degrees F in February, March and April. When and where possible, routine maintenance of small holes and cracks under such conditions can prevent those crevices from getting bigger.<\/p>\nBut potholes also form in Miami, Los Angeles and Honolulu – because moisture and freeze-thaw cycles aren't the only things that cause pavement to break down. Traffic, heavy loads in particular, as well as high temperatures, also cause cracking and shifting that ultimately undermine the sublayers of roads. All roadways need maintenance – the earlier the better.<\/p>\nPrevious large el niño<\/em> years provide some indication of what to expect in the winter, spring and summer of 2016. News reports from 1998, the most recent "very strong" cycle of the phenomenon, indicate that by early March of that year – when Los Angeles received 22.83 inches of rain in just three months – there were more than $137 million in damages to California highways (accounting for inflation, that would be almost $200 million in 2015). One pothole was reportedly 20 feet wide and five inches deep. As previously reported on Pothole.info, <a title="Damages From Potholes" href="http:\/\/www.pothole.info\/2009\/05\/damages-from-potholes\/" target="_blank">damage to vehicles<\/a> can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to individual motorists due to tire blowouts, cracked rims, alignment issues and broken axels. The Independent Insurance Agents of America report that pothole damages to all vehicles in 2013 cost $5 billion.<\/p>

El Niño Winter of 2016 Creating Potholes Everywhere

Cyclists just want to ride, but they can&rsquo;t if injured by broken pavement. Cities, states and railroad companies often pay out large settlements to&nbsp;victims.
As a veteran urban bicyclist, plying the streets of Chicago on two wheels in all kinds of weather since the early 1980s, I thought I was invincible. I&rsquo;m as skilled at avoiding bad pavement as I am bad drivers. I know rough pavement generally occurs in low spots, where standing water seeps through cracks and eventually causes asphalt to break down because the sub-pavement is unstable.
But one night in November while biking on a quiet residential street I found myself suddenly thrown to the pavement. What happened? I hit a relatively small pothole that was invisible to me. It was filled with rainwater with maple leaves floating on the puddle surface &ndash; an optical illusion that made it indistinguishable from the solid, flat asphalt around it. The crevice was on a corner near a drainage grate, so this pothole likely formed because storm sewers often back up with heavy precipitation.
I was lucky. I wasn&rsquo;t going very fast at that point, and even though my head hit the road I was wearing a helmet that absorbed the impact. I had a slightly swollen knee and sore wrist for about 24 hours, but the only lasting effect was a front-wheel alignment problem on the bike and a mark on the helmet. I wear the helmet 95% of the time &ndash; and will make that 100% from here on out.
Potholes are very real dangers to cyclists. According to data accumulated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (part of the U.S. Department of Transportation), 43% of bikers who feel their personal safety is threatened while biking blame uneven surfaces for their fears. Little falls like mine may not register in the injury statistics, but experienced cyclists understand the physics and risks.
The other side of pavement potholes and injured bikers is the financial liability borne by public entities &ndash; cities, counties and states, plus private railroads &ndash; that are responsible for maintaining these roads. In general terms, if authorities&nbsp;fail to repair a road with known&nbsp;existing hazards they are responsible for the consequences. Recent court settlements in biker-pothole injuries or deaths include:
<ul>
<li>Oakland, California &#8212; $3.25 million was paid by the city to a cyclist in 2015 who suffered severe head and face injuries in a 2011 accident. A citizens group had written to the city&rsquo;s public works agency about &ldquo;serious cracks and patches&rdquo; in the road where the accident occurred that caused cyclists to &ldquo;swerve left and right within the lane to minimize risk, often in front of a fast moving vehicle.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Albuquerque, New Mexico &ndash; The city settled for an undisclosed amount with a nurse who commuted by bicycle to her job at the University of New Mexico Hospital. In early 2011, she hit a pothole that caused her bike to veer left into the path of a car which led to life-threatening injuries, according to the Albuquerque Journal.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Chicago, Illinois &ndash; A bicyclist hit a pothole next to a rail track, causing her bike to lodge into the hole that threw her over her handlebars. Under Illinois law, as in many states, the railroad bore responsibility for the hazardous gap in pavement &ndash; an unfortunately common feature of at-grade railroad crossings &ndash; in part because a recent inspection failed to note the problem nor make for corrections. The judgment of $350,000 covered medical bills as well as compensation for scarring, pain and suffering.</li>
</ul>
For many law firms across the country, bike accident lawsuits are a substantial portion of their practice.
I am like most bicyclists in that I am not interested in lawsuits to compensate for injuries. We just want to engage in active transportation that gives us freedom from congested traffic and enables us to exercise as we travel, as well as the green benefits of human-powered movement. Most cities want to encourage cyclists and avoid six- and seven-figure payouts. I think we all agree smooth pavement, free of potholes, would prevent most of these accidents from happening in the first place.

Bikers and Potholes: Injuries and costly litigation

It's not just about raising the gas tax – it's that (by a fluctuating formula), but by other means as well. There's more than one way to fill a pothole.
While the U.S. Congress wrangles with reauthorizing spending on the Highway Trust Fund on an annual basis – making up for the shortfall in gas tax receipts – there are other ideas on how to maintain and improve the nation's infrastructure by engaging longer-term strategic planning.
One such set of ideas was put forth in April 2015 by way of The Hamilton Project ("Advancing Opportunity, Prosperity, and Growth") in a policy brief titled "Financing U.S. Transportation Infrastructure in the 21st Century." So named for the nation's first Treasury Secretary, known for advocating sound fiscal policy as a means of driving America's economic growth ("prudent aids and encouragements on the part of government" are necessary to enhance and guide market forces, the report notes), The Hamilton Project includes in its advisory council a <a href="http://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/files/brief_altman_financing_transportation_infrastructure_21st_century.pdf" target="_blank">blue-chip list</a> of nationally-recognized business, economic, political and academic luminaries .
Instead of only recommending that there be a hike in the federal gas tax, The Hamilton Project offers a hybrid of solutions (a type of a gas tax increase among them). Those recommendations include:
Longer-range strategic planning – The report recommends the U.S. Department of Transportation undertake longer-term strategic planning that comprehensively encompasses all modes of transportation infrastructure. It would improve data collection on infrastructure use and needs, and determine how subsidies for funding and financing investment should be optimally allocated.
Build America Bonds – BABs were used in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis but expired at the end of 2010. The program provides a direct interest subsidy to support state- and locally-issued debt on infrastructure projects.
Expansion of the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act – TIFIA provides loans, loan guarantees and standby lines of credit to state and local surface transportation infrastructure projects. One requirement is that those projects generate their own payback, such as through tolls and other user fees, which has made the program successful since its inception in 1998. Hamilton proposes that the current appropriation of $1 billion per year be increased to $10 billion.
Gas tax reform – Responding to the concern that the tax is regressive, particularly when the price of gas rises, Hamilton proposes a tax that reacts to gas price volatility. When gas is cheap the tax will rise higher (within limits), and conversely, when the cost of gasoline rises the tax will drop. Also, the tax and its upper and lower thresholds would be indexed to inflation (the current tax of 18.4 cents per gallon has been fixed since 1993). Additionally, modernization of user fee technologies should be encouraged, perhaps by federal government-sponsored financial incentives.
Pooled procurement – States and local municipalities do not currently coordinate their purchasing of infrastructure-related goods and services. Hamilton recommends that there be a national platform for pooled procurement (i.e., an online system that facilitates a larger network of potential agencies that can work together). The federal government could additionally incentivize participation in the network with grant funding to successful users of the platform.
The think tank report has now been provided to politicians and other policy makers. It remains to be seen what influence it will have on the powers that be. As of October 2015, House Ways and Means Chair Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has proposed tying infrastructure funding to international tax reform.
For the report abstract, go to <a href="http://www.HamiltonProject.org" target="_blank">www.HamiltonProject.org</a>.

How The Hamilton Project Proposes Fixing U.S. Infrastructure Funding

Maintenance costs for a road connecting small communities in the Hudson Bay region were cut in 2015 – and the predictable increase in potholes arrived on cue.
James Bay Road (JBR) in northwestern Quebec (Canada) is a two-lane, 388-mile journey from the town of Matagami in the province's interior north to Radisson, a village of about 500 people. The termination point is 1500 kilometers (about 900 miles) north of Toronto. It was built in the early 1970s to accommodate the development of hydroelectric projects in the James Bay region, which is the southern bulb of the Hudson Bay.
This northern area and highway, as one might expect, are largely frozen during the winter months. Which means the paved road takes quite a beating ­– although perhaps less due to low traffic and a solid stretch of time when temperatures remain below freezing, avoiding some of the freeze-thaw cycles in southern Canada and the U.S. that create potholes. But roads of that age will deteriorate without regular maintenance, as First Nation residents who regularly use it are well aware.
Ryan Erless, an indigenous Cree nation resident in the town of Waskaganish on the James Bay shore – which like several such towns have a gravel-only road connecting to James Bay Road – is part of a Facebook group called "James Bay Highway Road Conditions." Its 4,400 members report in on how the highway is doing, much of it focused on a noticeable and increasing degree of pavement deterioration. It's no small coincidence that Hydro-Quebec, the huge quasi-governmental utility that maintains the road, has reduced funds for fixing JBR pavement by 40 percent as of 2015.
"The potholes look like they're getting worse," Erless told Nation News, a publication with a readership of 105,000 who are largely Cree and other residents of this region. The print and online publication reported that Erless took matters into his own hands by installing orange pylons in the deepest of potholes as a warning to other drivers.
"I'm hoping people will see my pylons and know that the road needs fixing," he said.
Erless' efforts might have been effective. The provincial transport minister announced in April that $97.5 million (Canadian) will be spent over five years to fix the worst of problems along the James Bay Road, the largest such allocation in the highway's 40+ year history. The annual budget for maintenance (including dispersal of road salt during the winter) had been $4.8 million but was reduced to $2.7 million in 2015. The alliance of residents in the region, the Cree-Jamesien, has proposed that $8.2 million should be spent.
Erless suggested that even a large infusion from Quebec Province won't fix every pothole. "There's 600 kilometers worth of road that need to be fixed," he said. "97 million is not going to do very much, especially when some potholes aren't fixed properly and become a problem again every spring."
&nbsp;

Pothole Articles