Potholes

What do you get when you combine 3 months of much wetter weather than normal, 3 months of mostly freezing weather overnight, and loads more traffic – including a lot more big, heavy construction vehicles - on the roads?  Lots and lots of potholes.  The road surfaces round here are a nightmare.  It seems like every other day I’m failing to avoid a pothole on my commute – it can’t be doing my car and it’s nearly 5 year old tires any good.  Apparently Seattle does have a “pothole team” who go round fixing holes, but they don’t seem to have done much about the ones that I encounter – to the extent that at least I know where to avoid them now.  I suspect the budget for road repairs is miserly, and probably getting lower, as Seattle shows favoritism towards cyclists and spends loads of money on expanding its public transport system (part of the reason car tab renewals have rocketed up in price this year is to fund a massive expansion of the light rail network).  In the meantime, it’s the driver who has to suffer.  Interestingly though, I just found out that drivers can try to submit a claim to the city if their car is damaged by a pothole.  I didn’t know this before – I suspect the chance of the city covering the damage is small but nonetheless good to know if the worst happens.  I wonder whether in 10 years’ time when we’re all in driverless cars if we’ll have to worry about nonsense like this.