Letter | South Carolina roads are not in bad shape. I should know; I’m from up north.

I saw the cartoon in The Sun News showing the “bad” roads in South Carolina. Yep, it was of a car bumping along over potholes passing a South Carolina sign with the caption: “The low tax state!”

“I never would have guessed,” the “rattled” people in the car exclaimed.

This former New Yorker gives that cartoon a 5 out of 10. Why? Having moved from the frigid north some 10 years ago to the Carolinas, I know these Southern roads are not subject to freezing and thaws, not subject to heaving and “tin-eating Salt.”

Because of that, these roads are like heaven to us.

When we driving on our move south, first in North Carolina, I said to my wife, “Can you feel it?”

“What?” she said.

“The sound of nothing.”

I told her no expansion strips to go bump, bump, bump while your teeth rattle in your head, no pot holes tearing up your car and destroying tires, wheels, shocks, and springs.

Living in the south, our car will finally last out the payment coupon book before the fenders fall off because of salt corrosion.

Another article that said South Carolina roads cost motorists $1200 for maintenance, gas, and lost time is also flawed.

What percentage of those three items is strictly maintenance?

You will always have congestion, especially around Myrtle Beach - it’s called a tourist area for a reason!

And gas? What hooey. To help compensate we (gasp) bought a Toyota Prius, which gets better gas mileage in traffic with the hybrid battery system.

Those same federal studies showed those three items in New York state cost $1600 per year - and $2282 per year in New York City.

You think South Carolina roads are bad? A recent study in New York state indicated that only 53 percent of roads there are good or excellent. In South Carolina, depending upon which study you might believe, 75 percent to 80 percent of our roads are good to excellent.

For maintenance on three different Ford Escort wagons we loved, we went through four sets of rear coil springs, which were broken from impacts on expansion strips, pot holes and weakening from salt, we were told.

We had 10 tires with broken steel belts, broken from wheel bearings shattered from hitting a pot hole.

Have you ever seen a mechanic with a sledge hammer repairing a steel wheel that hit a pot hole? We have.

We had a Chevy Malibu that had all four tires with broken steel belts. You take off from a stop light with the car taking a wobble, then when you got to 10 mph to 15 mph, it kind of went away. That was my “beater” winter car to keep my “good” car from disappearing into a pile of metal rust.

The Chevy had no trunk; floor-plywood worked fine and seemed to resist rust. The seats had 2x4's in the floor to bolt the seats to.

My wife and I smile while driving these so-called bad roads, as many simply don't know what bad roads are. I’m not trying to pick on New York state; driving in another state like Pennsylvania or Ohio would be similar.

Folks, wake up! Check out the plates on other cars when you travel, and if you see one with holes in the rocker panels, trunk lids, fenders, or sagging from struts, springs, or shocks ready to die from the constant pounding of crummy roads, chances are, if it doesn't have a Northern plate - it once did.

The writer lives in Murrells Inlet.

This story was originally published July 3, 2015 at 5:01 AM with the headline "Letter | South Carolina roads are not in bad shape. I should know; I’m from up north.."