Is there anything more annoying than driving down the road on a nice sunny day and having to dodge potholes? Absolutely, and that would be driving in the pouring rain trying to avoid potholes while you can barely see past the hood of your car.
Potholes are a constant annoyance to motorists everywhere, but they’ve existed since the very earliest roads around, and it’s from those times they take their names. Pothole Day is your opportunity to do something about those potholes, and maybe learn something about them in the process.
History of Pothole Day
Every day there seems to be a new pothole forming on the roads you regularly travel, and they make your trip increasingly treacherous. Modern potholes are caused by wear and tear on the road caused by rain and sun and repeated travel by vehicles across the road. Hot-patch is often used to fix it, but often the next major rainstorm will see this temporary patch pushed right back out again as the road swells and contracts from the changing heat of the road.
Potholes are nothing new, and in fact, their name comes from the Roman roads built back in the days of the Roman Empire. In those days roads were built on a bed of clay, topped with gravel, and once again topped by hard baked bricks, and potholes were where potters would break open the roads surface to get at the good potting clay found underneath.
This was a great source of clay for the potters and a miserable source of trouble for the chariots and wagons that traveled those roads. Pothole day reminds us of their long history, and our responsibility to help get them taken care of.
How to Celebrate Pothole Day
How does the average citizen prevent potholes from becoming a nuisance? Officially there’s little they can do, they aren’t allowed to fix them, and stopping in at the City Hall and talking to their representatives can only get them so far. While not strictly legal, there is one person who found a creative solution, he would draw phallus around the potholes with bright yellow spray-paint, and the city took action to remove this inappropriate graffiti by fixing the holes! We can’t recommend such illegal action, but we do have to say that it was effective!
