Potholes

There are two types of people in this world. Those who can tell what a pothole looks like and those that can’t. I know this because strange yellow circles have appeared on the streets around Morpeth highlighting the holes in the road surface caused by the unusually protracted winter weather conditions this year. Until they appeared I never would have known they were there. The reason behind the bumping and banging as I drove my car along the roads was a complete mystery to me.

Clearly, there is some sort of campaign brewing to repair them. Marking out the areas to mend is the first part of this programme and I imagine a team of highly qualified and trained highways inspectors are trawling the local highways and byways, spray can in hand, comfortable in the knowledge that they have the skills to identify what constitutes a pothole. There’s one and there’s another.

What I can’t get my head around though is why this is all necessary. Why not train the people who fill in potholes to be able to recognise them instead. A year at university should do it. They can then drive around the streets in their flatbed trucks with all the tools and materials on the back they need to fill in the holes. When they see a pothole they can park up and fill it in.

These people are already employed. They already have the skills to do the job. They already know what is expected of them. They already know what a pothole looks like!

In this way the holes will be filled in more quickly as there will be no delay between recognising a pothole and filling it and there will be no need for those people who go round and highlight them with an identification mark. Oh, and there won’t be any need for all that yellow paint.

Winners all round.