The roads are hell

So how bad is this problem, really? Or am I just getting steamed up on purpose because I’ve got a few lines to fill? Not really and not least because filling the space is not a problem from which Ti ever suffers. To give an idea of just how bad the issue is, and how rapidly it is accelerating, consider that last February the RAC received an average of 66 pothole-related calls per day. This February? Try 225. And though it has been an unusually wet winter, so too was it a milder than average winter, and the single biggest culprit when it comes to pothole creation is water getting into cracks in the road, turning to ice, expanding et Robert est votre oncle.

But do you know who is most to blame for all this carnage? We are. The people who just love the look of enormous wheels with nothing more than a strip of black mastic for a tyre wall. No matter that these combinations increase unsprung mass, wreck ride quality and often spoil a car’s handling because, hey, they look cool and while I may be stuck at the side of the road contemplating another three or four-figure bill while I wait endlessly for the cavalry to arrive, it really doesn’t matter because at least I’ll look stylish doing it. These tyres simply don’t have the space to absorb the shock which has, of course, been massively increased by the needlessly enormous weight of most modern cars too.

Would cars really look worse on smaller rims with taller walls for their tyres? My friends who design cars like Ti contributors Ian Callum and Julian Thomson will tell you without question that they will, and you should absolutely set far more store by their words than mine. But I am less sensitive to such matters than they and can’t help but noticing that not one of those cars considered to be the most beautiful ever built felt the need for a 30 per cent profile on a 23in rim to get that way. Also, did the likes of the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato and Porsche 911 Dakar become less fun because they came on smaller wheels with higher profile tyres? On the contrary: these cars not only rode better, but were far more engaging and entertaining precisely because they didn’t put too much rubber on the road but did have some squish in their sidewalls.

But in fact no one is immune, as I found out in my old Golf with its 17in rims and 45 per cent profile tyres.

I’d not hold your breath waiting for this problem to go away either. Those councils who do find the funds to patch the roads do precisely that: patch. They manage the symptoms because there’s not enough cash to treat the cause, and you don’t need me to tell you how little time it takes for holes to open up again nor how much more expensive it is in the long run to continually bodge than fix once but properly.

We’re going to reach the stage, some of you may already be there, where the simple pleasure of going for a drive becomes that no longer, because instead of looking at the gorgeous road winding ahead of you, thinking how to line up the next corner, you’re scanning the ground immediately in front of your pride and joy with all the intensity of a bomb squad dog sniffing for unexploded ordnance. And that’s no fun nor is it, incidentally, very safe.

The Intercooler is an entirely apolitical beast and proud to be that way, so I report with neither glee nor sorrow that our current bunch of glorious leaders are in a spot of electoral bother right now, a situation unlikely to be improved by the forthcoming local elections. So could I just gently point out a fact that appears to have eluded them to date? There are approximately 48 million people eligible to vote in the United Kingdom right now. There are also approximately 42 million people who hold driving licences and the bill that will ensure every last one of them will be able to vote at the next election is on its way through Parliament as we speak.

Were I in charge, I’d note the RAC’s estimate of there being approximately one million potholes on our roads. I’d allocate £100 per hole, which I expect is rather generous, and realise the total bill would still be less than the estimate for a single HS2 bat tunnel. And I’d wonder which the electorate might consider a better use of taxpayer’s money.

But no Prime Minister is ever going to find him or herself stranded in the dark waiting for salvation to come around the corner, or crouching in the rain trying to find the mounting point for a scissor jack, or discovering the alloy wheel key has gone missing. So it’s not going to happen. But it should, because I’d vote for whichever bunch put that in their manifesto and showed for once they saw the motorist as anything other than an occasionally grumpy but always exploitable revenue stream. And perhaps you might too?