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Carmaker Ford has said it is experimenting with technology to detect potholes and warn drivers of their locations.
Cars equipped with cameras could constantly scan roads during journeys, with resulting data on potholes displayed on other drivers' dashboards.
The idea is being tested at the firm's research centre in Aachen, Germany.
One expert said altering routes to avoid potholes might not always be possible.
"A virtual pothole map could highlight a new pothole the minute it appears and almost immediately warn other drivers that there is a hazard ahead," said Uwe Hoffmann, a research engineer at Ford.
"Our cars already feature sensors that detect potholes and now we are looking at taking this to the next level."
Waze already does that with a helpful, "Watch out, pothole ahead!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @04:56PM
Mixed results when I've reported road problems:
+ My town-owned street was repaved about 10 years ago and after a few years some cracks started to open up--I called the highway dept and suggested adding a little tar to prevent further freeze-thaw damage (they do this every summer around the town). But no, they waited a few more years until there were larger holes and then put down relatively expensive (and bumpy) patches.
+ The larger state road at the end of my street has had a few holes open up at the edge, in the bike/walk lane. Reported these to the bicycle coordinator at the local state DOT office and they were neatly patched within a couple of weeks.
One problem Ford (or any car company) would have is to figure out where to send auto-pothole notices. My guess is that auto-emails to my town highway dept would quickly end up in a spam folder...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @05:56PM
One problem Ford (or any car company) would have is to figure out where to send auto-pothole notices.
Sure, but it is far from an unsolvable problem. Especially for a company the size of ford.