Diary of a Wedding Guest: Part 6 - Here's Your Sign

Every summer people begin telling road consturction jokes and talk about how bad their state is when it comes to detours and orange pylons. Michigan is no different - excpet they have one joke that no other state can match.

After checking into our hotel, we decided to take a little drive to visit "The World's Largest Christmas Store. The store is known as Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland and is located in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Frankenmuth, a Barvarian village, is about an hour and twenty minutes from Livonia.

To get to Frankenmuth, we had to travel north on I-96 and then on US 23. It was on US 23 that we encountered the best road construction joke of all time - a sign alerting us to "Rough Road Next 5 Miles". Usually when you see these signs, it is because the road has been grated in preparation for laying new asphalt. Not so in Michigan. Apparently, Michigan felt they could save little money by NOT repairing the road and simply telling drivers about the chuckholes! Let me tell you, after that five mile stretch, our rental car, a brand new 2009 Ford Escape with less than 1000 miles on it, needed an alignment! It was bad enough that the Ford Escape rides so poorly anyway, but for Michigan not to repair their roads is absurd. Especially when it is a federal highway and the state is receiving federal funds to maintain the road. What is this state doing with the Obama economic stimulus money that is suppose to repair the highway infrastructure?

To Michigan's defense, they did have lots of road construction on the interstates, but this was still unacceptable. Some might try to argue that Michigan had harsher winter than usual, but in other areas like downtown Detroit, the ruts and potholes showed signs of being patched several times. The city's streets will only fall further into disrepair with the crisis in the auto industry. I am sure the city is losing major tax dollars from the fallout.

So, back to US 23 and the five miles of "Rough Road". Maybe they should put a sign up that says "Drive at Your Own Risk - Alignments NOT Covered by the State". That way they could protect themselves from getting sued by drivers for failing to do their job. Whatever the case, it sure is a good way to cut several million dollars out of the budget. A sign only costs a couple hundred dollars. Actually reapiring the road costs several hundreds of thousands depending on how much is needed to make the repair.

So Michigan DOT, here's your sign! Be sure to place it where all the drivers can see it.