KINGMAN, AZ — Drivers tell ABC15 they try to avoid hitting pothole after pothole while traveling on I-40 between Kingman and Seligman.
"Almost immediately after we lost our tire...a car behind us had the same thing and by the time we looked around, I believe there were ten cars all together on the shoulder on Sunday afternoon with snow starting to fall," says Lota Rygiel, a driver from Berkley, California.
Rygiel and her husband were traveling from California to Sedona but were forced to divert to Flagstaff to get a new tire put on their vehicle. The price for the inconvenience was nearly $1,000.
"You can be sure that on the way back to California, we are not going to take the same road again," says Rygiel.
ABC15 received several emails from drivers this past weekend with similar encounters.
"That stretch had 25 vehicles that had either had a blown-out tire or tires, bent rims. There were trucks swerving, trying to avoid these potholes and I can't even really use the word potholes because most of them were truly like craters," says Dedra Sherfey, a driver from Strawberry, Arizona.
Sherfey says the damage to her car cost about $1,900.
ABC15 has been covering this pothole problem since early February and continues to ask the Arizona Department of Transportation for answers.
The agency told us Tuesday that there are several factors that affect pavement conditions, including rain and the repeated freeze-thaw cycles in Northern Arizona. That's on top of heavy traffic use and aging infrastructure.
"I've driven in foreign countries... that dirt roads are better than this freeway. There's just no excuse to have it that damaged," says Sherfey.
ADOT stresses to us that crews frequently check for damage and work to make temporary repairs but more permanent repairs can only happen in warmer temperatures.
"An even scarier part is, it looks like there's been some patching tried to be done, which then makes it look like it's fixed in certain spots. But then when you hit it, it's not fixed. It's just a patch over there. It's just, it's disintegrating. I mean it's...it's falling apart," says Sherfey.
A pavement project is planned along a several-mile stretch of I-40 eastbound, east of Kingman, although that's not until 2025.