Michigan Drivers One-Up Each Other with Photos of Damage from Bad Roads, at Governor's Request

From Car and Driver

• A cornerstone of the new Michigan governor's 2018 campaign was a promise to "Fix the Damn Roads" in the famously potholed state.

• Now Gov. Whitmer has asked citizens to upload their worst photos of car damage from the ailing infrastructure to social media, using the hashtag #FTDR.

• A cornucopia of images showing bent rims and worn-out asphalt ensued on Twitter and Facebook, a day after the new chief executive issued the challenge in her first State of the State speech.

In C/D's home state of Michigan, potholed roads have surpassed local-charm status thanks to the new governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who was elected last November on a platform that leaned heavily on her slogan "Fix the Damn Roads." Frequently uttered in her trademark northern Midwest accent, the phrase has become Whitmer's calling card, and now it's the latest social-media trending term in the state she runs.

In her first State of the State address on Tuesday, Whitmer asked Michiganders to "take a picture of your damaged car or repair bill and post it with the hashtag #FTDR. I'm sure you know what that stands for by now."

And post they did. Some of these stories are so outrageous they make our long-term Jaguar XE's 10 tire replacements and three bent wheels (a total of about $3600 in repairs in just 16 months) seem totally manageable. Take this one, for instance:

Poor TJ needed two rims replaced on his car for a staggering $1576! Hate to say it, but he's less than halfway to our Jag's record:

A lot of the responses are blown-out tires, bulged sidewalls, and severely bent rims:

Facebook user Karen Twichell shared this dangerous stretch of Haggerty Road in the town of Belleville, a highly trafficked thoroughfare not far from Car and Driver's Ann Arbor headquarters:

Some people took the opportunity to point out long-overdue repair spots on the roads themselves:

This person may have summed up the feelings of many Michigan drivers:

Jeff Irwin, a state senator for Michigan's 18th District, weighed in with a startling statistic:

We're hopeful that the Great Lakes State's new leadership can finally Fix the Damn Roads, but during the campaign Whitmer estimated that it would cost at least $3 billion to do so and that finding that kind of money in the current budget is impossible. But, during her time addressing the infrastructure issue on Tuesday, the governor failed to lay out any concrete (see what we did there?) plans or potential legislation that could help raise funds for the repairs. In the meantime, we'll keep cringing at the images of bent rims, decaying on-ramps, and sky-high repair bills.

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