WHO TAUGHT YOU TO DRIVE?
This column normally aims to inform, not scare the heck out of you. But how else to describe the horrors that await your car when you smack a really bad pothole?
"The potential damage are blown tires, bent rims, broken suspension components, or bent suspension components such as ball joints, tie rods, control arms, MacPherson struts, broken springs due to impact, blown shocks, or even a bent spindle," said Larry Rubenstein, mechanic and owner of Route 1 Auto Service in Peabody.
All that from hitting a pothole?
"Yes," he replied. "That's what happens."
Today we probe no one's favorite subject, potholes.
What, exactly, is happening underneath the floorboards when you hit one dead on? Is there anything you can do to limit the damage? And, the question I was dying to know, is the city, town, or state that owns the pockmarked roadway under any obligation to pay your repair bill?
I say that nobody likes potholes, but that's not entirely true. Brockton's Loyed Woodland, "The Pothole Medic," has repaired more than 100,000 of them in his lifetime. If you're curious about the benefits of hot mix versus cold mix, the difference between a binder base and a subbase, or the rotten shame of delamination, he's your answer man.
"In a heavily traveled road, I would say there's a good 50 potholes per linear mile," Woodland said in a recent interview. "For instance, we went out yesterday and worked for the state. We patched 75 potholes on a mile of 95 in Sharon and Foxborough."
We all pretty much know how potholes form: water gets into a crack in the road and gradually begins to pull apart the pavement by freezing and thawing. More water gets in, that freezes and thaws, and the cycle repeats until the hole is big enough to swallow your front tire.
As more cars and trucks bounce over the pothole, residual water gets pushed deeper into the hole. "The more you saturate an area with water, the more it's going to heave," Woodland said. When the water can't go downward any farther, it goes sideways, weakening the ground a foot or two around the pothole, he continued. Pretty soon you've got an adjacent pothole, then maybe a third. When they merge, you get a monster crater.
Potholes that are just a few inches deep probably won't cause severe damage. But when the hole is 6 or more inches deep, and wide enough to accommodate an entire tire, you could be in big trouble if you don't slow down before you hit it.
"The wheel drops in, then the wheel hits the pothole wall," said Rubenstein. "The car wants to go forward, but the wheel is stuck against the forward wall of the pothole. Either the wheel comes out of the pothole, or the car goes forward and the wheel and suspension components attached to it don't."
When that happens, they loosen, bend or break.
If you can't avoid driving into a pothole, you need to at least slow down, Rubenstein said. But he strongly cautioned against having your foot on the brakes as your car is diving into the hole.
"That will increase the damage severely," he said. "Now, in addition to the wall stopping the wheel, your brakes are stopping it, too. You're just going to have to ride the pothole out."
You could also hurt yourself: the impact of hitting a major pothole is akin to rear-ending a car and could even trigger your car's air bags.
Rubenstein's worst pothole case was a Toyota Camry that suffered $1,500 in damage. ("Bent knuckle and strut," he recalled.)
But he added that very few drivers rack up such expensive bills because New Englanders know enough not to speed over large potholes. More likely, hitting a pothole will cost you a $60 realignment, or $100 for a blown sensor on the car's tire-pressure monitor.
Which brings us to that all-important question: Who pays the bill?
Probably - but not always - you.
From an insurance standpoint, pothole damage is covered under collision coverage, but it's subject to standard deductibles, said Daniel Johnston, executive director of the Automobile Insurers Bureau of Massachusetts.
"Since most of the time the damage that you get is to a tire or rim, usually the cost of that does not rise above the deductible, which is usually $300, $500 or $1,000," he said. "So, technically, while there may be coverage, as a practical matter there's very rarely a claim."
If you hit a pothole on a state-maintained road, well, you're out of luck again. According to a century-old state law, the "Road Defect Statute," the Commonwealth is not liable for any car damage sustained on its roads. (The state allows claims only for personal injuries.)
Local roads are different, though. According to a different statute, "Personal injuries or property damage from defective ways" (Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 84, Section 15), cities and towns must properly maintain their public ways. If they don't, you could seek property damages of up to $5,000.
Boston has a four-page form, which you fill out at the city clerk's office for a fee of $5, that asks for a detailed description of the accident and repair estimates.
In Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, and probably the majority of communities, you merely write a letter to the city clerk stating your case. Eventually, a city solicitor or town counsel will review your claim, which must be filed within 30 days of hitting the pothole, according to the state law.
Your chances of seeing some cash? Hard to say, but communities do pay pothole claims, said Brookline's town counsel, Jennifer Dopazo.
"We send a request to the DPW, who will go out and take a picture. We have to make a determination of whether it is a pothole that could have caused the damage" the car owner claims it did, she said. "Then we have an appraiser evaluate the claim to make sure the costs are reasonable - whether the estimates were too high, or they needed a rental car for 30 days. Then we pay on the claim."
For damage caused by construction-related holes or metal plates, the town's contractor might be asked to pay the claim, she added.
Brookline pays a good number of the 200 to 300 claims it receives a year, Dopazo said. "It has to be a serious pothole and it has to have caused the damage," she said. "We're not going to pay if someone is driving around with bald tires and they blow one. Then some people want to throw in more - they want an extra alignment or something. We won't pay extras."
Still, claims can be denied even when the damage is legitimate. According to state law, cities and towns are liable only if they fail to show "reasonable care and diligence" in the course of fixing the pothole, a fairly nebulous legal term.
"It's a gray area that depends on the crews you have and the budget," Dopazo said. "It's probably reasonable to expect the Town of Brookline to get out there within a week, but if you're in a town that's strapped like Lawrence, they may have two guys who fix potholes. It might take them a month."
If you don't like the result of your claim, state law allows you up to three years to sue for damages in Superior Court. After that, you're really sunk.
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