It’s time for pothole season to begin

The race is on to see which city can claim the biggest post-winter pothole.

Will it be Fort Worth, Texas? “It’s basically torn my tires up. I’ve had to replace my tires I’ve had to redo my alignment.”

Will it be Jacksonville, Arkansas? “I worry that my tire is going to be slashed from running into a hole like that.”

And can anybody compete with New Jersey? “I wouldn’t even call it a ‘pothole’ – I’d call it a ‘crater.'”

Actually, the biggest pothole I’ve seen so far was in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – there’s a picture of Keith Highlands Jr., age 47, in his Saturn, bottomed out in a 15 foot wide pothole on South Dithridge Street.

He says he couldn’t see it coming.

Pittsburgh is promising a three-day dawn to dusk pothole blitz this week.

There is some remarkable technology out there to combat potholes. A pressurized truck-mounted pothole repair system uses a fat air-hose to blast out the water and dirt. The jet airstream ensures the liquid emulsion penetrates all cracks. It sprays a sticky emulsion into the hole and the fresh emulsion coated aggregate is sprayed under-pressure into the pothole.

It sounds easy and quick.

Of course most of us are probably just going to see the blacktop truck and the guy with the pavement tamper.

So your best advice is to drive defensively.

Slow down and when in doubt, take the more familiar road, and remember that what looks like a little puddle may be something a lot worse.

Of course, when you come across a pot hole in Seattle, you can put one of the city’s Pothole Rangers to work.