You Have Got To Be Kidding Me

// June 26th, 2006 // General, Photos // 2,401 views

Not so long ago in a place not so far away there once was a nasty stretch of road in Bellairs Drive, Northriding. The road was filled with potholes and any unsuspecting driver would face dire consequences should he venture on this road without the necessary precautions.

Fast forward from 10 March 2006 to 18 June 2006.

This time our driver was travelling from Paul Roux back to Johanneburg via Secunda and on the stretch between Vrede and Standerton lo-and-behold there was yet again a nasty stretch of road filled with potholes. Err let me maybe rephrase that – the stretch of potholes were interspersed with small sections of tar.

So picture this, travelling at around 80 km/h behind a truck and a bakkie with trailer, dodging potholes, I mean tar, as though you’re playing Gran Turismo when suddenly you see the truck and bakkie dip suddenly in the road. You go into defensive driving mode, everything around you seems to slow down. In front of you, merely 10 meters ahead and closing fast, a pothole the size of an impact crater in the middle of the road, a second smaller one on the left, cars coming from the front, a beemer on your ass and a non-existent yellow line and jagged edged road surface. What do you do? Brace for impact and try not to hit anything, but the smaller pothole.

BAM!! The front left tyre strikes the pothole with such force and sound that all passengers wake instantly from their dreamy long-weekend sleep deprived snooze.

Car starts veering to the left – you fear the worst, you switch your hazard lights on (by now the impatient ass-creeper beemer has manoeuvred passed) and you look out for a suitable place to stop on the side of the road to do the dreaded inspection.

Luckily the damage was not as bad to the rim, but the tyre is suitably screwed. It actually turned a slight blue/green colour – what’s up with that?

A quick unpacking of the whole boot and a tyre change later, we’re on the road again, some passengers slightly rattled by the whole ordeal, others quite energized by the fact that there was so much excitement in one day.

So back to Tiger Wheel and Tyre on Saturday morning to get a replacement tyre, a wheel rotation, some alignment changes and a lovely dent in the wallet and you’re on your way again.

Somehow I feel cheated by the fact that a brand new tyre had to be replaced – again. Potholes suck.

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15 Responses to “You Have Got To Be Kidding Me”

  1. Katt says:
    2006/06/26 at 09:03

    Oi! I thought farm roads were bad! Finally buying a 4 x 4 for the city makes sense!

  2. Aquila says:
    2006/06/26 at 09:36

    Absolutely Katt – it’s almost a non-negotiable these days…

    PS they only fixed the bellairs drive road this weekend – three months later – we’ll see how long it lasts before it’s full of holes again.

    For the gadgeteers around – the location of that tyre change was at:
    S 27°26.378′
    E 29°07.910′

  3. Jam says:
    2006/06/26 at 09:58

    The Mpumalanga roads have potholes so large you could fit an entire herd of cows and your car down them. I wonder why we pay tax. Perhaps we should be suggesting that the government pay US to drive on the roads they won’t fix…

  4. Daedalus says:
    2006/06/26 at 13:31

    Try to miss them AQ.

    Us RunX drivers know that we have low-profile – so we drive with caution ;)

  5. Aquila says:
    2006/06/26 at 17:05

    Ah low profile also means low threshold to potholes – like in my case….Then, mine’s not as low as yours. (okay that sounds funny)

    Jam – ohh that reminds me – I forgot to mention the cow-jumping-in-the-road-out-of-nowhere incident a mere hour later. Let me tell ya – that advanced driving course was definitely worth it.

    Think I should claim from the Road Accident Fund.

  6. tripeak says:
    2006/06/26 at 17:34

    OMG! Try driving in Maputo…. thats crazy – you have to keep an eye out for EVERYTHING!

  7. Daedalus says:
    2006/06/27 at 10:01

    LOL – “mine’s not as low as yours” Hahahahha… How low can you go?

  8. Aquila says:
    2006/06/27 at 15:53

    Daedalus – I think the lowest one can go is 265/30R19 hehehe

  9. Don says:
    2006/06/29 at 10:13

    I. hate. potholes.

  10. angel says:
    2006/06/29 at 18:31

    MAN do i know that stretch of road!
    luckily i’ve never had any tyre or car damage… mostly because i remembered where the worst stretches were… i did see two brahmann bulls fighting in a field next to the road once…

  11. Daedalus says:
    2006/06/30 at 11:52

    Well said Don ;)

    PS AQ: I really battle with the damn Math thing you got going here. IQ test?

  12. Aquila says:
    2006/06/30 at 14:11

    haha Daedalus – should I add a virtual calculator on the site too?

  13. LH says:
    2006/07/02 at 10:15

    My T5 is a pothole diviner! Where did you do your advanced driving course, I think I may need one. 40000km and 3rd set up rubber due to potholes. Had mag repairs done too. Doesn’t help living in Sundowner!

  14. LH says:
    2006/07/03 at 17:59

    My T5 is a pothole diviner! I’ve replaced tyres 3 time and repaired mags in under 40000 kms. Where did you do your advance driving course? I’d like to do one too.

  15. Aquila says:
    2006/07/03 at 21:28

    LH I found out what happened to your posts dude – sorry about that..it was marked as spam for some odd reason.

    Posting my offline reply as well…

    Geesh I think it’s a Volvo thing. Before the T5 I had the old shape S40 2.0… and even that thing would almost shit itself every time it would see a pothole. I also had to replace tyres and rims on that thing.

    On the T5 as you have probably noticed – I’ve replaced all tyres at around 45000 and now again I busted another with that damn pothole. Not to mention a tyre slashing incident when my car was only a few days old… (but that’s another story all together).

    Is your T5 a full import or do you have one of the locally assembled ones? I’ve heard that the full imports have stronger/harder rims than the local version. While I have no clue to how true that info is, I think that I’m quite lucky that I didn’t bend a rim with that last one.

    Maybe it’s because we drive a bit faster than the other people around us? haha..

    I previously did my advanced driving through BMW (a couple of years ago) but I must admit I wouldn’t mind doing another refresher. Maybe with the Audi academy or something.

    Pity Volvo doesn’t have one of their own.

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