interesting animation... I thought us highways had 11 inches of pavement, unlike the germany highways with 20 plus.<ul><li><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/graphics/20090211_potholes/">http://www.boston.com/news/graphics/20090211_potholes/</a</li></ul>

There are plenty more that don't even do that. In one of the main roads in my town I noticed a pothole starting to form and what do I see? Cobblestones. That's right they just put a few inches of asphalt over the old cobblestone road.

construction is pure BS. I doubt we have 3 feet of gravel base on ANY roads around Boston.

A lot of the worst potholes form around utility cuts (and manhole covers). In particular, utility cuts are usually shoddily patched after the work is done, and these patches fail very quickly.

Also, I routinely see snow plows plowing dry pavement, once all the snow is already clear. There are usually large chunks of asphalt at the side of the road after, which have basically been shaved off the road. Plows don't cause the initial freeze/thaw pothole damage, but they hasten and exacerbate it.