As the weather continues to warm up in Michigan, drivers are seeing more of those infamous craters in the roads: potholes.

Created by the expanding and contracting of roads as the weather warms and cools, potholes can cause damage to cars while also creating a bumpy ride.

Lansing city officials are anticipating the number of potholes to be up this year over previous years, and some drivers are wondering how they can report these pesky road conditions. Drivers can report potholes on a growing number of websites, but don't assume officials always will be checking those pages for information.

"We would strongly encourage people to call 483-4161 to report potholes (in Lansing) because as there are more places for people to complain about potholes, there is a lesser percentage chance of officials seeing those complaints," said Chad Gamble, public service director for the city of Lansing.

Many other officials in the tri-county area echo the suggestion to contact them directly by phone or email for the fastest response to potholes.

For many local roads, that response might be a temporary fix for now.

Blair Ballou, engineer-manager for the Eaton County Road Commission, said road crews generally are focused on the emergency repairs in early spring until the weather stabilizes, which means most pothole repairs are meant to be only temporary patches on the worst wheel-busters. The material for permanent fixes isn't even commercially available until late April sometimes, Ballou said. In the meantime, road crews just have to work with what is available.

Joe Brogan, a salesman at Brogan's Tire and Auto Service in Lansing, has treated the damage done to cars by potholes and experienced their wrath himself. He lost a hubcap recently after driving through a pothole he couldn't avoid.

"It can definitely create some problems," Brogan said about hitting potholes. "The tires themselves take damage. It can break the steel belts in there and ... if it's a bad enough pothole it can dent rims, it can knock the car out of alignment and it could loosen up some suspension components."

The cost of repairs for that kind of damage can total anywhere from $45 to $250 or more, Brogan estimates.
"If you see a big pothole coming they say it's best to just drive through it rather than swerve around it, because if you catch just the edge of it that can puncture the side wall of your tire," Brogan said.

"If you can avoid it easily, that's the ideal thing, but if you need to really swerve sometimes that's all you can do."

Drivers also are encouraged to drive more slowly around potholes and leave more distance between their car and the one in front of it to avoid larger accidents as a result of hitting a pothole, Gamble said.
 

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