How Michigan Is Using Math to Fight Potholes

In the great American north, spring is a time of particularly ecstatic renewal. Shed the coats! Toss the sweaters! Get outside more than the moment it takes you to sprint to your car without slipping on ice! And bring on the trucking load regulations, which arrive as surely as the snow thaw.

Northern climes institute trucking load regulations for the simple reason that trucks wreck roads as pavement defrosts from the winter. This is Potholes 101: Water seeps into and softens pavement, then freezes once it gets cold enough. The constant thawing and re-freezing of the water during the chilly season sometimes stretches pavement past its breaking point, leading to cracks and holes. And the problem only gets worse in the spring: melting ice leaves more gaps inside the pavement, which is easily smashed to smithereens by, say, gigantic truck wheels and their heavy loads.