We live in Kentucky and know what a pothole can do to a car.  Potholes come in all sizes.  They might be a foot deep.  Most potholes are formed due to wear-and-tear and the weathering of roads.  Heavy traffic can aggravate the cracks and potholes in the road, making them more severe. This can go to the point that they are a danger that can cause car accidents, motorcycle accidents, bicycle accidents, and pedestrian accidents.

The size and depth of a pothole can vary substantially.  Even shallow potholes may cause an accident.  Tire blowouts, damage to the undercarriage of the car, loss of control due to the jarring, whiplash, muscle strains, or dental damage caused by severe jarring are some consequences of driving over a pothole.  Under some circumstances the municipality or property owner in charge of maintaining the pavement may be responsible for the injuries.

A case in point is a fatal accident that happened March 15, 2010, where a young wife and mother of two was killed by hitting a simple pothole.  The Fisher family was traveling home to South Carolina when their pickup truck neared the Georgia state line. They were traveling on a rough section of I-20.  A car traveling in front of their truck hit a pothole, sending a piece of concrete through the truck’s windshield on the passenger side, where Jo Maureen Fisher was sitting.  The chunk struck her in the head.  She tragically died the next day.  Today, the husband, John Fisher is a single dad trying to balance work with child care.  Almost a year after the accident, the family was paid by the state of Alabama $1 million. This is even though they had not sued the state.

This was indeed a tragic incident.  There would have been no life lost and a young family left without a mother if those potholes were repaired. This was a preventable accident.   We are hoping that local and state government will continually maintain the road in order to avoid such fatal pothole accidents.

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