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Potholes and other
spring driving hazards!!!
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Well, the clocks have been set ahead and spring is just days away.
It’s easy to believe that risky winter driving conditions are
nearly over and smooth sailing lies ahead. That’s only if you
haven’t yet experienced the frost heaves and potholes plaguing
our roads and highways. These hazards are caused when water gets into
cracks in the roadways and then repeatedly freezes and thaws. The main
source of that water, other than the rain, is the snow melt and run
off. All of these underlying conditions pose unique road conditions
and a necessity to adjust our driving skills accordingly.
Fog:
A perfect recipe for fog is fluctuating temperatures, standing snowpack,
and rainy weather. Be aware that fog can form quickly and vary in it’s
density and coverage. The main thing to do is SLOW DOWN
because your visibility and therefore reaction time will be greatly
diminished. It is often common to come upon slow moving or stranded
vehicles in dense fog. Keep your headlights on low and use your four
way flashers if necessary.
Standing Water:
With the heavy rain and rising temperatures storm drains can be either
filled to capacity or clogged and cause water to pool and sometimes
freeze on roadways. Please allow plenty of room between your vehicle
and the vehicle ahead of you because these hazards are often hard to
see and become apparent with very little notice. Standing water can
cause vehicles to quickly lose traction and hydroplane out of control
so maintain plenty of space. To prevent hydroplaining make sure your
tires have adequate tread depth and while you are at it, make sure your
wiper blades are in good working order. Water can not only be thrown
from the vehicle you are following but is often thrown with such force
from oncoming traffic that it can momentarily blind your vision of the
roadway.
Potholes:
The best thing you can do to avoid potholes and similar unknown and
unsuspected hazards is to SLOW DOWN and leave plenty
of room between you and the vehicle in front of you. Watch the flow
of traffic and expect vehicles to occasionally veer into your lane of
travel. Make mental notes as to where to potholes are on your daily
commute. Potholes are often fixed only to deteriorate and reform on
the very same day. Use extra caution when approaching puddles being
mindful that a pothole could be underneath. The State and the municipalities
try to be very diligent about patching potholes and similar problems
but they can only do that if they know about them. A quick call to the
appropriate town office or the nearest DOT facility about the location
of a pothole could save another driver from suffering a lot of damage
or possibly an injury.
More tips...
