If they can't be fixed, more visible potholes are better than nothing

Here's the theory: make potholes easier to see, and they'll be easier to avoid. How would it work? Employ a base layer underneath the road in some garish color, and when tarmac divots appear, voila, the things stick out like wounds. Both theories have been suggested by Domenico Diego and Cristina Corradini, students at the Polytechnic University of Milan, while looking for a way to make streets safer.

The duo will test the ideas in the Italian city of Rho this spring – a small-scale trial to examine costs and benefits. If that's successful, the next stage would be figuring out a new process for making road surfaces in order to create a 'skin' on top and a contrasting 'flesh' below. And the stage after that, as far as we're concerned, would be how to keep pothole-laden streets from turning into slalom courses as drivers try not to connect the dots.

[Source: New York Times via Kicking Tires]