Apparently some political party has a new policy out. They are promising to fix potholes within 24 hours.
It’s obviously a "button pressing" policy for this election because for about 24 hours I heard politicians and the public bickering on the airwaves about what to do about them and who should be blamed.
Now, I do encounter potholes on my drive home and I have come "up close and personal" with a few of them, so I’m not unfamiliar with their impact, but it seems to me that the policy suggested is dealing with a symptom rather than the disease.
Water and heavy trucks are the twin causes of our great pothole creation scheme. Many parts of the country have had more than their fair share of rain lately and we’re promised fewer, but more intense storms in the future.
It would be nice to think that rail transport will get some trucks off the road, but not any time soon I suspect. So potholes will stay with us — best to put them to good use.
I have a counter-intuitive suggestion.
Don’t fill in the potholes. They could possibly be a means of deliverance. They could be a problem that might, ironically, save us. Pass legislation that will punish those who fill them in. Leave them to gradually expand ... for a year.
This will have an immediate impact. When driving we’ll all have to slow down to try to avoid them. That might cut down on emissions and possibly lower the road toll.
That’s a good start, but only a start, for there’s much more value to be mined from unfilled potholes. As they pit our highways and byways we’ll soon find that we won’t be able to avoid them.
On any trip we’ll be treated to a real jolt every time we hit one. Each and every jolt will of course have a jarring effect on the driver and passengers and jangle the nerves.
That’s when we should all repeat this mantra: "don’t be a dinosaur". Ideally the "don’t" as the front wheel hits the pothole and the "dinosaur" as the rear wheel hits.
This will provide us with numerous daily reminders that our lifestyle and probably our world is under threat.
There will be collateral damage. A few tyres will explode on impact with really deep potholes. The rush of hot air out of the tyre when this occurs could provide us with a useful mental reminder. On such occasions we should bring to mind the decades of hot air most of our politicians have emitted when talking about their actions on climate change.
It is true, cars will get damaged, the electric ones unreasonably so, as their impact on the climate has been minimal, but their owners will also have to suffer for the greater good. Wheel rims will get bent and deformed and I know they’re not cheap to fix or replace, but that will be a small price to pay if this programme succeeds.
Each time we pay out our hard earned cash for a repair or purchase we’ll be reminded that we’re going to face much greater costs as our infrastructure and houses get further damaged and the cost of their repair outstrips our ability to fund them.
At the end of that 12-month period we’ll all have been jolted, shaken and jarred into a new reality. We will be ready to insist, categorically, brooking no further argument, that our politicians act decisively on climate change.
That’s why we need to learn to value, to treasure, in fact to exalt the much maligned pothole. It could be our saviour.
- Ross Johnston is a pothole enthusiast from Pūrākaunui.
