Essays in Idleness

My advocacy of potholes goes back at least half a century, to jeepney-riding in the remote Philippines. The vehicle was bouncing around wildly, and my companion of that moment complained about the construction of Philippine roads. I, however, recommended them, because if they weren’t so uneven, our driver would be trying to go much faster. Our lives were already in as much danger as we could wish.

Asphalt had been invented a hundred years before that, by some Belgian, and I’m sure that road has now been asphalt-covered as part of the progress of the “tiger economies.” Rather foolishly, if they have retained any jeepneys. Indeed, the number of fatal road accidents that may be blamed on this Belgian inventor (his name was “de Smedt”) has possibly exceeded even the number who perished of disease, as the result of banning DDT (credit “Rachel Carson”). But the modern takes such cold-blooded slaughter in his stride.

Travelling, today, on foot along the back lanes of Toronto, I am often appalled by the waste of paving materials, even where human life may not be endangered. I watch armies of workmen lay down smooth asphalt in these narrow passageways, and then, because the elimination of pedestrians by speeding vehicles in tight spaces would be inconvenient to automotive traffic, the workers go back to install “speed bumps” at regular intervals to slow traffic down. They also like to place them across residential streets in the more affluent neighbourhoods. This method of “traffic calming” is second only to the insertion of bicycle lanes along major freeways.

But I am most offended by the replacement of the quite serviceable, free potholes by expensive speed bumps. The multiplication and spread of potholes is, after all, a requirement of civilized life, as one may determine by inspecting any depiction of an ancient road in art.