The insanity of the very car sick

Not everyone knows this about me, but I am an extremely accomplished inventor. Well, except that I never actually implement any of my innovations. But in the past I have invented an electronic Christmas registry service that malls should promote to parents of teenagers; a Tim Gunn Advisor Doll, inspirational tool for budding artists and graduate students alike; and a children’s party clothing/Halloween outfit/school play costume service that would run on the model of Netflix. My newest invention was inspired by the Shillong-to-Guwahati road, which I took yesterday, arriving in Guwahati. Where I still am now, as a stop-over point on my way to Kolkata/Calcutta.

The asphalt on that road is in truly dreadful repair. There are potholes that have appeared where the previous, underlying pox were not sufficiently filled in, so that the sides of the pothole reveal four or five different layers of asphalt that were laid down over time, like the stripes of sediment revealed by as a river cuts a canyon through millions of years of rock. There are new, sharply defined craters in the road, and others that have eroded into gently sloped lakebeds. There are places where the many divots in the road have spread out to meet each other, so that the whole of the road becomes an undulating asphalt surface. And there is a nice layer of gravel and dislodged road bits over everything, making the flat we got about 15 minutes outside of Guwahati all but inevitable. And, keep in mind: this is in a place where temperatures do not even fluctuate that widely.

Of course, this is not a particularly unique situation, within India, or the world. I am sure some of you who study other parts of the developing world are rolling your eyes, wondering what I am complaining about since this road was, apparently, at least paved at some point. And you are thinking of the faint footpaths that serve as the channels for moving humans—uphill both ways in the monsoon—in the places you have traveled. Thus: the need for my invention.

We all know that the state of the world’s roads is not the result of technology. Humans know how to build good roads. The problem is corruption in the process of building the roads. In many countries, being Minister of Roads is way better than some dead end job like running the Ministry of State. Huge amounts of graft go into making roads: the bribes that go into convincing the government to fund new roads; the bribes that pass in terms of who gets the contracts associated with that funding; and—most critical for the quality of those roads—the pocketing of most of those funds, so that all that gets laid down is a wee thin layer of gravel and tar that comes up several kilometers short of the span it was supposed to cover and begins to get torn up even as the construction workers drive home to enjoy a day’s half-assed job.

My idea: the government should mandate that roads be made out of some sort of lattice of cobblestones, except not cobblestones but something like cement hexagons. And the cement hexagons will all be made at only a few plants, where the government could monitor that the thickness of the hexagons was sufficient. (Maybe even foreign plants, if the economies of scale dictate this, but that could cause domestic outcry). This would be in contrast to making roads from gravel and tar, which can be manufactured in lots of places, making it more difficult monitoring whether the materials are well made, and whether the contractors are actually buying all they should be. So, when the Guwahati contractor orders the hexagons, it is easy to check that he took delivery of as many as he said he would, and to count the number of the blocks that are going into the road, as opposed to only being able to check on the thickness of the asphalt only after it has already been laid and only by cutting a little hole in the road. The contractor could steal hexagons and sell them on the black market, I suppose, or try to file some of the cement off the hexagons before he laid them down, but that would be, hopefully, more effort than it was worth. And it would definitely be less efficient an opportunity for corruption than walking into the gravel pit, ordering too little gravel, and giving the gravel man a small bribe to alter the invoice.

My idea is no panacea, of course, but what I figure is that it would at least help matters if it were harder to cut corners on the materials that go into the road. In some ways, I am just moving the opportunities for corruption around and up the chain, but I think I am also making them fewer in number. Also, moving corruption opportunities up the chain means, on the upside, that the central government has an incentive to implement the Hexagon Program, even if they are a bunch of louts themselves. Maybe the idea is net bad, though, since there is more money to be made at each point in the production chain (with just a few plants in operation) and thus bigger incentives for corruption. Probably, there would need to be a pilot study, perhaps in someplace like Zambia, which, one of my advisors informs me, only has two paved roads. Good to start small.

The scheme has other downsides, too. The gravel and tar people would now be selling to the hexagon-makers, who might be able to pay them low rates since they could not sell as widely. And, perhaps most troubling, I have no idea if this idea for road construction is technically feasible or remotely affordable. In fact, I am not even completely sure I have accurately described the components of asphalt under the status quo. (I could look on Wikipedia, but the connection here isn’t very fast). Still, I think maybe some engineering types can take my idea and figure out those details. I think it would also be good if they could make either the hexagons or the material holding them together act as a carbon sink, so that the road would be absorbing CO2 even as the drivers were producing it. So someone should really get on all of this.

So, economists, engineers, and development agencies of the world: I offer you another of my brilliant inventions. Free of charge. It is the least we creative geniuses can do.