There could be a high-tech solution to stopping potholes from eating your tires

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | February 19, 2020 | Lauren Rosenblatt

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Not many people would complain about a 60-degree day in February. But this winter’s temperature spikes could mean even earlier exposure to one of spring’s downsides: potholes.

Tech gurus can’t stop the weather conditions that cause asphalt to weaken and crack — eventually opening up gaping holes large enough to swallow a Goodyear tire or mess up a Jeep’s alignment. But armed with smartphones, algorithms and self-healing asphalt, they’re trying to make road maintenance a little more manageable.

While some are experimenting with high-tech ways to fill the pothole once it pops up — like using a 3D printer and a drone to fix a crack almost instantly or creating asphalt that will repair itself with a little extra heat — others are looking at better ways to monitor the problem that costs Americans millions annually in road and vehicle repairs.

In Pittsburgh, East Liberty-based RoadBotics already has a platform called RoadWay that uses a smartphone and machine learning to tell governments, municipalities and other stakeholders which of their roads are in bad shape or are on their way there.

This month, it is rolling out a software update meant get even deeper into the pavement. Now repair teams using its tools should be able to pinpoint the exact locations of road “distresses,” like potholes, patches and cracks. “Having this tool lets you come in with scalpel precision,” promised co-founder and president Benjamin Schmidt.

Even Tesla leader Elon Musk has said he wants his electric cars in on the pothole fixing fad. He said the autopilot feature, which makes the cars somewhat autonomous, can identify and map potholes. It’s unclear how well the system works.

[Deaf Smith]

One can map out potholes all they want, but they still will be ignored.

Very recent story, a tree was planted on one pothole to show it was ignored. Others then placed potted plants in other potholes to highlight them for a news story.

[coloradan]

Do government agents not use roads on their way to work, where they tax us to pay for roads, tax the cars we drive on those roads, and tax the gasoline we put in those cars to drive on the roads, which taxes are necessary “because roads”, but, they never happen to notice those very same potholes that all the rest of us also drive over, each day, every day, on those roads?

[BenLurkin]

[Rashputin]

I saw some tires that are really just a whole rim of spokes sightly packed together and that was pretty neat but I don't recall what they were called.

Potholes exist because the problems of the little people are not what the big people care about.

[rockrr]

Great idea!

I once got a ticket for improper lane travel. It was because I swerved to avoid a pothole. I took a picture of the pothole and presented it as evidence in court.

One of the few times I won in court!

[Sequoyah101]

Somebody post this:

https://jalopnik.com/a-road-crew-painted-a-stripe-over-this-dead-raccoon-5934591

This is the reason potholes are such a huge problem. It is also more succinctly known as the IDGAF syndrome. The pothole problem has noting to do with finding them with high tech gimmickry.

I watched a crew here slothfully shoveling big piles of hot mix cold lay from the back of a pickup into potholes simply inverting them for bumps that the cars are somehow supposed to smooth flat or something.

[TigersEye]

I must have extra-sensory perception. I’ve never had any problem finding potholes.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

There could be a high-tech solution to stopping potholes from eating your tires

I prefer the low-tech solution where the city or state use the tax money allocated for road repairs to actually fix potholes instead of spending it on absurd pensions for bureaucrats belonging to some government workers labor union.

[Fresh Wind]

I saw a bumper sticker recently...

“I’m not drunk-I’m just dodging potholes!”

[exPBRrat]

Good luck with this, organized crime controls most all aggregate plants and they want keep producing a shelf life product that requires constant replacing.

Planned obsolescence is what it’s all about.

[Hot Tabasco]

Here in S.E. Michigan, the road patching crews just dump a shovel full of asphalt onto the holes or cracks and let the car tires pack it down........stupid! They need to use dirt tampers to pack the stuff down properly so it doesn’t pull out.......

[Hot Tabasco]

That’s all they do here too......it’s lazy, inefficient and stupid!

[Sequoyah101]

Missouri makes a good show of patching pot holes. You’ll see a dedicated rig, probably expensive but you have got to have proper tools. They first clean the hole of debris, shoot it with hot tar, shoot hot asphalt mixture into the hole, screed it, pack it with an air tamper, roll it with a vibratory roller, shoot it again, screed, roll and repeat until it is smooth. A good effort. I have not seen any other state go to this effort.

Missouri is of course just like all others struggling with funding. There is never enough money for what we need to keep progress going.

[bkopto]

For as much money as taxpayers shell out for “road repairs” we get very little in return.

I’d rather pay a private company to maintain and build roads, while reducing tax outlays to the .gov incompetents.

As it is .gov incompetents can’t even fix potholes.

[kearnyirish2]

I believe an artist in NYC did that a couple of years ago; he was placing plants in the potholes. In the NYC metro area the volume of truck traffic combined with four seasons makes it a real pain; you just have to wait until the spring repairs before re-aligning your wheels (or you’ll be doing it a few times each month).