A Pothole Swallowed my Car

Courtesy of The Loudoun Times-Mirror/Raymond Thompson Potholes like this one are more prevalent this year due to all the snow melting into cracks in the roads, then refreezing and expanding.

By Hannah Hager and Elizabeth Coe
 
ALEXANDRIA, VA. - As the remaining snow from the latest round of storms melts away, local drivers are dealing with another winter menace – potholes.
 
"I've been in the tire business for 40 years, and I've never seen as many damaged tires and wheels than I've seen these few weeks," said Paul Gallahan, who works at a local repair shop.
 
The combination of cold weather and heavy loads of snow caused many roads to crack under the pressure, leaving dips, crevices and giant holes.
 
It only takes a tire hitting a pothole a fraction of a degree to cause damage, said Andrew Esposito, service adviser at the The Tire Shop.  He said he has seen more and more customers coming in with tire and alignment problems caused by potholes.
 
Sometimes the damage is a flat tire or a bent wheel, but if a tire strikes a pothole at a high speed, it can throw off the alignment, which is measured in hundredths of a degree, Esposito said.
 

This road sure was a pisser. Most of it was dirt, with gaping potholes that would have swallowed a car whole.

Before the back-to-back storms, the shop would see a vehicle with pothole damage once a week, he said, but after the storms, that number increased to two or three vehicles each week.
 
At Virginia Tire and Auto, sales manager Tim Lowry is also now seeing several cars a week with tire or alignment damage caused by potholes.
 
At several local repair shops, the number of flat tires and bent wheels service advsors have seen has doubled to six to eight cars per week. New tire sales and repairs are also up, he said.
 
Unpaved secondary roads can house many potholes, but he said he sees many flat tires caused by Washington, D.C.-area highways.
 
The best way to handle an oncoming pothole, Gallahan said, is to slow down and try to go around it – but don't cut into an oncoming lane. An accident is a much greater danger than a pothole.
 
Minnie Lindsey, a local bus driver, said even small potholes present a challenge. “The roads are clear of snow, but now they are getting potholed and muddy, which is always the next step after a storm,” she said. “It's pretty bad because sometimes the bus is as wide as the road, so you just take it easy and slow down and drive very carefully so you don't do damage to the bus.”
 
Lindsey said potholes are a major problem along some roads, adding more than five minutes to her daily routes as of this week. “I couldn't do anywhere close to the speed limit,” she said. “That's how bad in shape some of the roads are.”
 
The Virginia Department of Transportation is gearing up to fix the roads.  “This is going to be a brutal year for repairs,” said Joan Morris, VDOT spokeswoman.
 
VDOT has started work already on the worst potholes around the region, using a machine it calls the Pothole Killer. The machine can mend up to 100 potholes – permanently – in one day. A team of workers can typically fix about 10 potholes per day, but only temporarily until the cold weather subsides.
 
The Pothole Killer should be coming to Alexandria in the next few weeks to aid in road repair. The Pothole Killer is a large truck with a crane-like arm on the front.
 
Keep an eye out for it on a road near you.
 
Potholes Giving Budgets a Bumpy Ride
 
The drifts are receding from Northern Virginia roadsides, but road repair needs continue to accumulate.
 
Town and state officials are left wondering how they will cover these new costs with an already overtaxed budget.
 
“Potholes are a safety issue, so we will spend whatever it takes,” VDOT spokeswoman Joan Morris said.
 
After snow removal chewed up about $65 million in Northern Virginia, VDOT will be focusing primarily on safety-related road issues, in an effort to save as much money as possible. This means some road repair work will have to wait, as VDOT tries to pay for this “unforgettable winter,” Morris said.
 
VDOT is responsible for all roads in Virginia, except for secondary roads in towns.
 
There's no estimate yet on how much pothole patching will cost Alexandria this year. It's hard to measure the exact budget for repairing potholes, since the cost includes items like repair materials, equipment and man hours.
 
Hager and Coe write for the Loudoun Times Mirror, from which this story is excerpted. Rachel Leon contributed to this article.