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Subscribe to RSSA single pothole in California damaged more than two dozen cars in one day during a recent storm.
“It’s not safe for drivers out there. Everyone is getting into accidents,” Nisha Jethi, one of 25 drivers who had their car damaged by the crater on Highway 4 near Pittsburg, in the Bay Area.
The massive crater on the road left her with a flat tire, two busted headlights, and a day of lost wages.
Jethi said she intends to add her name to a list of roughly 1,500 local drivers who file damage claims with the state each year.
Despite the high cost to the state, it can take several months before Caltrans, the agency responsible for highway maintenance, is able to repair a pothole after it has been reported, according to an investigation by NBC Bay Area.
Caltrans estimates that it should take 10 days on average for maintenance crews to fill a pothole identified by drivers through a service request. But when NBC Bay Area filed its own request, Caltrans took more than six weeks to fill the potholes identified on Highway 101 in San Francisco.
Other drivers are experiencing even longer delays.
‘A waste’
Caltrans records show that the agency has paid more than a million dollars to Bay Area drivers filing claims since 2009.
“Those are dollars that could be used for new roads and making sure the right kind of infrastructure is in place for safety,” said Contra Costa County Supervisor Federal Glover. “When you are paying out those types of claims, it is a waste.”
Although Caltrans denied NBC Bay Area’s requests to speak with a maintenance manager, the agency reiterated the importance of safety in a statement: “Safety is our number one concern as we repair guardrail, median barriers, and potholes on California’s busy highways.”
Records show that there had been several requests for service along Highway 4 in Pittsburg earlier this year. That was before Jethi’s car was damaged from a pothole, which was made worse by heavy rain the day the 25 cars were taken out.
“It’s their problem. If something is messed up in your house, it’s your responsibility to fix it,” Jethi said.
The pothole that damaged Jethi’s car has since been filled. She says she’ll be sending the bill for her damages to Sacramento.
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Twenty five cars in one day? It must have been an assault pothole.
Denver Bill, I swear your really a retired comedian! Your posts make me LMAO every day!
I'm so glad your here to offset the few lunatic ultra-fringe commenters on here.
Okeeboy,
Thank you.
"Sometimes I think funny thoughts." ---Dudley Moore, in Arthur
They have so much pot now, they need more storage.
Probably one of those "high-capacity" potholes. I hate those; they're so rude.
Only the government agencies should have access to such assault potholes.
Tell dollar I said 'hi'.
I guess people haven't driven our roads in St. Croix USVI. You spend all of your time trying to dodge the $#%^&** potholes in our road (all of the money gets spent maintaining the roads in St. Thomas). And our government doesn't reimburse you for damage, just like WAPA doesn't reimburse you for damage to all of your appliances and electronics every time they have a power outage (weekly and sometimes daily or more than once in a day on one or more of the ten feeders.) Oh the joys of living in paradise :-(
Anti-trust
I have, after the big storm 2 years ago I was shocked to see just how badly the roads were and were washed out. You really can't get up too much speed though, which is a saving grace for the potholes that look like puddles.
anti trust....trade ya...they are predicting 7 inches for tomorrow night around here...but dont worry they are generally off one way or the other by a foot or so....
The California State Government wasting money??? That's like being surprised the sun rose in the east.
get ready to wait a long time... thats what car insurance is for
Whoever does the Caltrans guessimates needs to find another job. Crimmey, one would be better off going to a psychic.
And how frilling long would it take some worker to actually drive to the spot of this anti-tank ditch (formally known as a pot-hole) and place an orange cone?
Asking a pothead to fix a pothole will never work unless you put it in writing and constantly remind him/her its time to go to work. They may need a tire boot to get them motivated!
infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure
your 20 year old car with 200,000 miles on it has balding tires and hasn't had its oil changed in years -- what do you do?
Maybe California should stop giving the parking-ticket-givers and pencil-pushers in city hall 90% of their salary for life after they retire and put some money into road repair??
please, here in canada we have a road game called pothole swerving. The more the better
Jayfos, depends on which state and which insurance company. Everytime a person has to rely on their insurance to pay them for something there is the chance that their premiums will go up the following year. Of course, here in NJ auto insurance is renewed every 6 months. It is a business deal with the State so they can charge more sooner if a person received points for a traffic violation. There is never a guarantee that insurance companies will waste their time and resources to chance after states or local governments for payment. They will only go for the big pay-outs!!
You can't expect public sector workers to actually work. If that where to happen you would have to raise taxes.
Or allow them to work Union free....then filling a pothole wouldn't require 6 workers, a supervisor and coffee breaks every other hour. Plus, it would be done in a matter of hours instead of days.
I filed a claim in LA for a pothole once that flattened my tire. Didn't get anything. They said it wasn't their responsibility and that I should have seen it (in the rain, when it was at the bottom of a puddle). I hemorrhaged money when I lived there.
AG, small claims court... they will rarely send someone to counter your complaint and you will automatically win by default.
Bummer. Didn't know about that then. This was many years ago.
Ya'all do realize that WORK is a four letter word?
First all the workers are fired (that's what trimming back the size of government means, after all), then people complain that government isn't working fast and hard enough. Folks chime in that "it's the union's fault!", without the least bit of consideration to the impact that laying off well over 600,000 workers (nationwide) during this recession meant to the ability of government to do its job. It's ignorant to lay off that many people and expect the same results. I don't care if it's government or private business.
Ten days to repair a road is grossly negligent in my opinion.
or what any SEU road crew would call pretty efficient in their opinion
Couldn't they just send one or two guys out with a bag of EZ Street and a compactor to fix the smaller ones and send the crew that stands around and watches one guys work to the larger ones that need machines worth a $100,000? Our hard earned tax dollars at work people, but the gov't needs more $$$? Pft okay...
it depends on what the backlog is -- and with severe budget cuts, the backlog is probably pretty long
For one that bad, couldn't they at least put up traffic cones and close the lane or something?
That would require forethought and a plan. California has neither.
Todd - Comment of the day.
Just a note to all drivers--please, please . . . don't drive through high water. You don't know what's under that water, it could be a hole, pot hole, loss of the complete roadway, a major washout, etc. Many have lost their lives by attempting to pass over something that isn't there. Please, be safe.
so it's the state's fault that people are driving into these things even though they take this road everyday and know that the minor chip in the road is there? I tripped over my untied shoelaces while walking downtown earlier even though I knew that they were untied but just didn't want to bend down to fix it, can I sue for emotional suffering? because it was really embarassing and I think that I may need to go to the dry-clearns now which I'm also going to need for someone else to cover.
Actually, potholes can grow or even form overnight when it rains hard enough. And that particular highway can often have a lot of people navigating it for the first or second time because people use it to get to recreational areas.
I often wonder what it is about California that makes people want to move there.
With the enormous cost of real estate, the broken infrastructure, the nearly bankrupt Government, earthquakes, riots, bad cops, raging wildfires, illegal immigrant problem, etc... Why?
Other than the huge pot industry in the northern part of the state, exactly what is the "it" that makes the place somewhere you want to raise your family?
Is it Disney?
Is it Hollywood?
Is it Silicon Valley?
Enquiring minds want to know.
CA has a large influx of illegal alien invaders.
i live in oregon but how about for starters being about 1000 miles long and 400 miles wide.beautifl coastline ,the redwoods the tallest trees in the world the seqoias the widest trees. the highest mnts in continentalus mt whitney,the lowest pt, in us death valley,the oldest trees. yea ca.has alot of nuts but there is no place like it in the us.geographically.you can be skiing and the same day you can surf.yea the liberals and enviro wackos have srewed it up politically but honestly ive travelled around this country an awful lot and i have to say ca, truly is the breadbasket of the world.the next time you sit down to eat i guarantee most of your food comes from ca.maybe a great place to visit?not a good place to own a buisness as they say ca. is like a bowl of granola take away the fruits and nuts and all you have left is flakes have a merry christmas
good question okee,
implants?
cheap yardwork?
free unicorns?
Rick,
Thanks for the reply. I think you make a good case for visiting CA, but I'm still not convienced that the Redwoods make up the difference when it comes to living there.
I have visited CA on a few occasions. Mostly changing planes at LAX when on my way to spend a year living in a third world country courtesy of the US Army. I have also spent 6 quality weeks living in the desert just out of Barstow for Desert Warfare Training. (That was way too much fun!) Seriously though, I did get to drive through Yosemite once. It was truly grand, but just to visit.
Scooter,
Can I have a Unicorn even though I don't live there? Will they ship? LOL
BTW, my wife might be interested in a boob job. Will they ship those too?
I lived there for a year because I wanted to work in the film industry. Worst year of my life. It made Oklahoma look good when I relocated.
Were you one of the cast-members on the film's... 'saving Ryan's privates.'....or ...'the booty buccaneer's'...??......if so i would have to agree....all those re-takes really wore me out....
Would that I had the assets to even be considered! No, I was an assistant camera.
don't wish that you could be doing pornography ag99, you seem like a very intelligent and rational man you shouldn't rob the world of your mindd-fruits by degrading yourself pohysically on a daily basis and corrupting your soul, you'd be miserable in that line of work ag99 and i hope that whatever you're doing now is something that challeneges and fascinates you because that is what you deserve.
cameraman? ...i believe i see the problem, there are lots of them...... i wouldnt want to give up my "fringe benifits" myself..... our new project is doing well though tentatively titled... "two and a half women"...bit of trouble from the NOFMSPD U though ( the national organization for midgets short people & dwarfs union)
LitterHater: Much as I appreciate the sentiment, I was mostly referring to my desire for a better body. It's the curse of American womanhood (I'm not a man) that we obsess over these things. Perhaps if I stopped eating all those mini Snickers....
my apologies ag99 I ment to be gender-neutral since I wasn't sure but it must have escaped me. Either way though trying to improve yourself either as a person, physically, whatever is always a good goal to apply yourself to accomplish and if you work hard enough as it there's no doubt that you can achieve whatever it is that you want to see in your own body-image. and mini-snickers are actually pretty decent meal replacements if you're on the go. I used to house a bag of them every week and still ran the half marathon without seeing any change in my performance during training or anything like that.
There are almost four million miles of road in the US folks. If there is one pothole for every mile in the US today that's four million pot holes. Most potholes get filled in a few days. Why are some not fixed or marked? Because everyone thinks someone else will call it in or I don't know how or it's not my job. Fix my roads, don't tax me. Educate my kids, don't tax me. Police my neighborhood, don't tax me. I want fire and EMT protection, don't tax me. Come pick up the leaves pile I left at the curb, don't tax me. Provide public libraries, don't tax me. I want a nice park with swing-sets etc for my kids, don't tax me. I want courts for justice, don't tax me. I don't want my town polluted, don't tax me. I want clean water at the tap, don't tax me. I want free safe medicine, don't tax me. Provide me a retirement income, don't tax me. And let's not forget my favorite "Everyone else is a lazy no good worker and doesn't deserve the employer benefits I get".
LitterHater: No problem. I picked AG specifically because it is gender-neutral. I didn't want what I had to say to be colored by what gender people thought I was. It's not a secret, but I do want to make it irrelevant.
Well, in my quest for a better body, I'm off to walk the dog up a nearby mountain.
have a nice walk ag..........(sorry didnt know either)
Calif must have taken road repair lessons from PENNDOT here in PA...what has four doors and sleeps six?? a penndot truck...
good one mike...have a christmas cookie...
A pothole near a town called Pittsburg. I bet there's more than one; otherwise the name would be Pittburg.
Why does the state think it should pay for these damages?
i wonder if they have potholes is her country of origin? if not it might be a good time to go back.
Um excuse me Henry but Jethi is a very American surname and in fact it was my sister-in-law's maiden name so why don't you take your hate and discrimination rhetoric back to your local KKK meeting where it belongs because nobody wants to hear from you when you only have negative and derogatory things like that to say.
wow wtf the page jumped when I originally went to click "reply" and I accidentally gave that racist moron a like, how do I erase that vote please?
I'll "like" your response in order to cancel out your unintended "like"
There, fixed.
that doesn't work dinglebr since now his racist ideologies have already been confirmed in his mind as being "justified" since he sees that checkmark next to his name and since you also voted for his comment he now thinks that he's twice as right now and is way too emboldened. nbcnews needs to change their policies on the commenting-boards liking system or else B.S. like this will continue to ruin our local communities.
California has the worst roads .
nope..
I haven't been to CA for about 20 years, but I bet our St. Croix roads would beat out CA's any day.
my roads here are actually pretty nice as well, we just petitioned to have the town fill in some of the rougher stretches and now it's got that nice glistening-black look to it but hopefully they come back and pave the other half after this winter's over. two streets down from me they've got okay roads too but i think that ours is a little better now with the new improvments overall.
You must not have driven in Massachusetts. There was a pothole near the Science Museum in Boston that was so bad it ate a car. They had to get tow truck to pull it out. Forget flat tire.
alot of those potholes get filled and the traffic just beats the material right back out.they need to grind the pavement down and pave over it.
your right rick, i just did the math,
1 backhoe....( they already own) ..$100 gas. $250 hour to drive it there..so.... $350
Concrete..9 yards delivered ....$150 here ...there?...call it.... $500
25 union employees to lean on shovels for a 10 hour day...$650.000.00
two illegals to do the actual work......$50.
kickback to the politiions for the contract ...$1 million
kickback to union officials ....$1.2 million
official low contract bid....$5 million
yep it could be done the figures add up.
Rick that is the problems in any locale with filling potholes. If you don't excavate the bad base, build a new solid base, repave, then SEAL the edges of the patch, it won't last more than a couple of months. I used to work for the OHDOT and city of Defiance Engineering Department. That was what we always had to do to properly repair a bad pothole until we had the money to do a proper total resurfacing of a section of highway/street. That is also the reason why we have so many potholes here in St. Croix...bad substrate, bad base preparation, poor blacktop materials (tar/sand/stone mixture due to the salt impurities in the base materials), and the fact that they actually use the roadways as the drainage system rather than installing proper storm drainage along the edges of the roads. I often wonder where the local engineers and supervisors/managers received their education. It sure wasn't a practical learning.
Herre's a novel idea, kill two birds with a single stone, per se, fill the potholes with illegal aliens... problems solved.
i agree if you dont put in good drainage and then keep the drains cleaned your going to have all types of problems.most of the road problems on the west coast is poor drainage
yeah atp the state government here pumped a lot of money into our local work-projects and now we've got the state of the arts equipments and tehcniques that we need to have some of the nicest llookking roads around and it's a really good thing to have as far as community pride and organization is concerned. if we didn't have the nice roads that we do people also probably wouldn't have here in the amount they do and now we're a very family-friendly and racially-diverse community and i feel like the work that was put into the local roads is a big part of that transformation. now maybe the town can focus on the educational standard that have been slipping lately while continuing the good work that it's dfone on the road system near the downtown-stretch and then we can have some of the greatest infastructure and dedication to the kids that our state has. i would like to see some of the road signs refurbished though becuase a lot of them are dealing with a level of wear that tarnishes the first and second coats of paint and is just visually kind of a turn-off but even some of the street-name signs are falling into disrepair and that's unfortunate for people who aren't from around this area and can't recognize one street from the other off of the top of their heads when they're looking for a relaitve's or friend's house to spend some time at knowing that they are in a safe and clean community. But then again I guess there are a lot worse of ideas that we could be dealing with so as long as the main things are taken care of maybe we can get to those other stuff later when we've got the freedom of budget and man-power to get it all done. I suggested some of those things be brought up during a town-counscil session in october but the chariman's wife actually went into labour during the active-session so one of the delegates called for an indefiante reccess for the day which kind of got me mad but then again life does havea way of intervening even when we're trying to get important issues discussed or at least put out into the sopt-light. Hopefully i'll be able to attend the first one of the new fiscal year though and then maybe get this all in action because there's nothing like a clean-looking town to make the people living in it follow suit. That's why I think that a lot of the inner-citites sometimes have issues with their people becuase oftentimes their sanitation systems are outdated or their local park, buildings, sidewalks, and roadways are falling into disrepair with no plans on the table to try and fix these issues. I mean if the kids see that they live in filth-conditions than why would they automatically believe that they should live like dandellion flowers and blossom into something beautiful? they won't in my opinion and that could potentially doom them to a life that isn't as great as it could otherwise be, so I say for the kids-sake lets get those concrete-mixers blasting and the police-details ready to go and have these much needed roadworks underway. Honestly you can just take my town as an example for this because in my opinion I've never seen the people being as happy and carefree even though the economy isn't the greatest and there's no doubt that the solid and seemless roadways that we have through a majority of the town now have a rea significant part to play in all of these good things that have happened lately largely as a result i think in a classic cause-and-effect type of way. I hope that more local governments take similiar initatives on their own roadways because oftenttimes this is a local issue and should not be pushed beyond that like a lot of you all here seem to think that should happen and there's examples of this all over our great country when localgovernments listen to their people and take the inititative to make fixing/ suring up their roadways a real priority like they should.
yeah rick poor drainage is often a quiet-killer that not enough people address when these things start to happen, very good point man.
Pot holes .. what happen to the Pot
Damn Feds?
you may be onto something there warren, maybe they should just quit planting it in the street in the first place.
oops
What's a Nisha Jethi ? I am sure the third world country you came from has a lot worst roads.
Ummm, photos? There are none to include with the article? Guess I'll hit up some other news source...lol.
what you want a stunning digitally-enhanced picture of a friggin' pot-hole or else you don't understand what's being talked about here? It kinda looks like this ----_----- but if that still isn't good enough for you why don't you go to gooogle images and then come back here with some amazing commentary that I'm sure that that will free up in your mind.
Of course, in Californica, nobody believes they should ever slow down and drive safely in adverse conditions. It really is possible to slow down, look where you're going and drive around potholes. We do it all the time up here in the mountains.
Maybe Mrs. Jethi wants to actually get to work on time because she's an important asset to her company and they need her to be there unlike you?
Can't see the pothole if it is underwater.
yes you can taxed because unless the pothole is in a high dirt-deposit or silt-filled area the water will be clear and standing since the run-off from the nearby pavement will all flow into it. But even in a normal rain there won't be enough persciptation to fill in an entire pothole like you're thinking and this is probably just more attributable to distrtacted-diriving since it doesn't say in this article that it was flood-like conditions that these people were experiencing or anything like that.
CA taxpayers pay for damage to cars from potholes? What a messed up state.
call sokolove law, or the goldwater law firm.....where 'we will sue anybody anywhere, for anything'....bet your state is covered as well,
10 days ...six weeks...to fix a pothole? pretty quick if you ask me after all Its CA, first they have to have a committee "study" it to determine weather or not what they have is actually a problem, then the city, county, and state each have to tax it, then draft a bill on weather or not to legalise it, then decide who gives the best kick backs to get the project " and multi -million dollar contract to fix it. then get pelosi and boxer on board to get the money from barry, ...these thing take time ya know....its a long tedious process....then hire 12 union people to watch an illegal alien fill it with a shovel or two of hot-top.
Slow down there Scooter!
Your moving things along WAY TO FAST for Gov workers! LOL
I say we BAN potholes. Stop the Carnage!
yep when will we ever learn the simple truth that " when potholes are outlawed only outlaws will have potholes".
so....
A. this is a 'news' article about pot holes
B. we are all here commenting
which begs the question;
who's more bored and having the slower day?
It's my last day of work this year, motivation is not necessarily high. Capp it off with my company being tied indirectly to the 'fiscal cliff' and here I am, commenting on illegal aliens and potholes.
How can they fix the roads of the money is going to support illegal aliens?
California spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for over 800,000 illegal aliens. That would have fixed how many potholes?
I thought sure the article was going to be about I-80 in Central Pa.
no riverman the I80 is actually a pretty good road, I doubt that you'll see any major construction on it within the next few years or any stories about it in the national media since the pavement's relatively well-held together considering the volume that it deals with on a daily basis.
that's a tough one alright riverman ...between that and Illinois on I-80...a real toss up.
The salary of the caltrans worker who was interviewed IS the WASTE here. Why is this moron not out there fixing that pothole? I can fill in a HUGE pothole for 25 dollars with 2 home depot asphalt patch.
Sitting there and TALKING about the problem then accusing the public of being wasteful is the REAL PROBLEM here. FIRE the head of caltrans OR stop collecting road taxes which is another waste. What are my taxes paying for IF NOT ROADS and infrastructure FIRST ?
Caltrans = incompetent morons.
conrad the california interstate roadway is a massive operations, I'm sure that they're moslty focusing on bigger issues like toppled bridges or cracks caused by major fault-lines slipping in the earth's crust. How about you calm the F'ing down and stop accussing this hard-working man who's trying to undercover the fundamental issues involved so no further issues like this arrive a break okay?
most of the guys who are out there keeping the roads safe are good workers.out where i live i'm thankful for these guys.we get alot of huge rock slides from the rain and lots of ice and they keep the roads pretty safe.its the management end thats the problem.you got supervisors managing supervisors .yea there is waste and i'm sure some of the stories of three guys to do the work of one are true.its the beauracracy,that i believe is the waste.alot of these government agencys have a budget fot the fiscal year and if thet don't use up all the money in that fiscal year like lets say june 2012 till june 2013 they lose it for the next year so before the year is out they will waste millions on frivolous overtime and penciling in lots of jobs or buying things that are not actually neededthey need to use it or lose it.a damn shame
yeah rick I compeltely agree, these guys are the ones who basically built america from the ground up over the late 19th and early 20th centuries and continue to enrich this country and add to its value on a daily basis today. The fact that they're often loked down upon or mocked by people sitting in their ivory towers (which were buolt for them by these nobel laborers) is a travesty and shouldn't happen in this modern age. sure, the work isn't always glamoruous and is a logisticall-nightmare to get everythingput into place, but at the end of the day the finished products are things that all of society can use and benefit from and i'd say that that makes these great workers some of the most important people in this great country.