The gravel thread got me to thinking about this observation.

It's a pure fact.

Dirt/gravel roads get ruts, potholes and washboarded because the vast majority of people don't have a clue how to drive on them.

If you have ruts or potholes showing up, DON'T drive in the same ruts... Move over a bit. Avoid the mud puddles and potholes.



This is a directive I have to remind my wife of often...



I know you guys know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, and don't hit you brakes hard as you get to a sharp curve, and then accelerate as soon as you get out of it. This leads to a bad case of "washboarding". miles

A lot of people don't know how to drive!

You just won first prize at the county fair.

The gravel road into my favorite hunting area is a miserable SOB to drive most of the time. Between the townies that have cabins on the mountainside (They are friggin clueless) the dickheads in their side by sides (They go as fast as they can just because they can) to the loggers. Geez! By the time hunting season is here it is a slow crawl for the 24 miles to where I like to hunt. On the bright side it might keep the competition down I guess.

I learned by watching the Duke boys!

As a kid, I had to drive nine miles of gravel road to hit pavement to get to high school. You kinda learn by doing in a case like that.

A lot of the wash boarding is caused by today's soft suspension vehicles I am told

My father called the Police Jury about some bad mud holes just past my driveway. He can’t log his tracts or cut hay due to the shape of the road right now. Parish maintenance came out to look last week and had to winch their pickup out. They agreed it was maybe time to work on the road. It has cut down traffic from 2-3 vehicles a day to maybe 1.

They certainly do up here and they also know how to plow. Today was our annual road day with the handful of folks that use "our" private mile and a quarter. Spring breakup necessitates fixes annually. We have a meeting, agree on where to fix, and get it done.

I'll bite. What is a Police Jury?

It's like the county commissioners... only with the parish govt. Louisiana has.

JPro, you sure are making our Police Jury look bad.....but, they didn't need any help doing that. Which one represents yall?

I learned to drive on dirt / caliche roads in the Permian Basin. Out there, the appropriate speed is around 60 mph. Swerve for holes and slow down enough so you don't fishtail too much around curves. For some reason, those lease roads are pretty curvy for flat country.

A lot of it is caused by inept grader operators.

The Police Jury here keeps the roads right around the county(parish) seat in pretty good shape but get four or fives miles out and they get pretty rough real quick.

If it's gravel. Actually a layer of gravel.

Slow down.

Somebody $pent a good bit of coin to cover the dirt,
And they want that stone on the road.

Not in the ditch or field.

This applies more to private roads than public.

But really, come on.

The private is 3/4 mile of gravel.

Just how [bleep] quick do you need to cover that?

There was a Leanin' Tree birthday card, It read, "You have a face that would make a train take a dirt road".

I tried to look it up, one choice was Chelsie Clinton.