Potholes

I was driving back home from work late on Tuesday in less than ideal driving conditions – dark, very wet and lots of water pooled on the roads.  Before even reaching the freeway, I heard a big thud like I’d hit something.  I didn’t think I had, but it freaked me out.  It didn’t seem to affect my car so I continued my drive home before inspecting my car for damage.  I couldn’t see anything – I was passing a van when it happened but it didn’t seem very close, so I wondered whether I’d just hit a pothole or run over something I couldn’t see in the bad conditions.  On the drive into work the following morning I tried to see anything in the road where it happened, but this was early and it was still dark and I couldn’t see anything.  However I was able to leave work early yesterday whilst it was still light.  And this time, I saw what had caused the noise – a big pothole in the road.  I don’t know how I missed it before, but there it was – hardly a sinkhole, but not insubstantial.  Because I’m a great driver, I still didn’t manage to avoid it a second time and went over it again – hopefully doing no (more) damage to my car wheels or suspension!  It looks like it might have been filled up this morning – but I guess I’ll try to avoid the hat-trick today!   Personally, I blame all the construction and the big construction vehicles on the road causing all the damage – the state of the roads round here is a disgrace and has got progressively worse, and I think they are the predominant cause.   

Note - I wrote this at lunchtime.  And guess what, I hit the pothole AGAIN on the way home this evening.  Jeez, I'm a lot worse driver than I thought I was!  So I've just submitted a pothole report to the Seattle Depart of Transportation - their website claims to fix potholes within 3 days of reporting them, but we shall see.  And I need to be a LOT better at avoiding this one again.  The pothole causes a massive jolt to the car, that I am quite worried that it might cause some damage.  I shall have a more thorough check of my car tomorrow morning before I leave for work, just in case.