Washington Roads Could Be Costing You More Than You Think

We all want nice roads to drive on, and we all gripe because of that one pothole that we can’t seem to avoid. But that little pothole can cause some wear and tear on your vehicle. But how much could that cost over time? More than you realize, but luckily we’re not too bad when it comes to the Evergreen State. We have the breakdown of what rough roads can cost drivers in Washington below.

Taxes & Road Work

There’s a great meme floating around that shows ‘Hide The Pain Harold’ with the caption:

“Just paid my taxes, the roads should be fixed any day now!”

Giphy.com

If it only worked like that in the real world! Funds to work on our roads mainly come from fuel taxes, with additional funds coming from licenses fees, RUC (Road Usage Charge), and others (according to Tax Foundation.org).

Rough Washington Roads Leads To More Costly Car Repairs

With as much as we pay in those gas prices and taxes, you’d think that would get a little relief knowing that the roads are some of the better ones in the United States, but no, that doesn’t look to be the case, and we can measure that by how much damage our cars are taking because of poor roadways.

road construction

AmericanTrucks.com looked at operating costs of vehicles, pavement quality stats, weather factors, infrastructure assessments, and crunched to numbers to find out which state’s roads crunch our vehicles the most.

The average across the United States that drivers spend on road-related car repair is $725 a year. In Washington, we pay $835 (on average). As much as we like to boast that our roads are nice, it actually looks like Oregon has it a little nicer, with drivers paying $319 a year on average for road-related vehicle repairs.

READ MORE: Welcome to Washington! Hope you're not driving far!

Which state is the best and worst? The least costly state for vehicle repair is Vermont with $253 on average, versus the most expensive state of Mississippi with $1,062 a year on average.

I don’t know about you, but knowing this info gives me a whole new reason to be upset over Washington’s high gas prices.