When Video Advocacy Gets Government to Fix Roads

Photo by akeg via Flick

As powerful as the written word can be, sometimes it takes the extra help of a video and a little push by the "fourth estate" to get things done in Southern California. In today's weekly Road Sage column by Steve Hymon, he features Rich Allen who made a nearly 10-minute video to post on YouTube that highlighted the terrible pothole conditions on the 60 Freeway (video embedded below).

Then the Riverside Press-Enterprise ran a story about it. In turn, both KCBS and KCAL picked up on it (same companies). "Within two weeks of the video hitting the Internet, Caltrans -- one of the agencies Allen had been badgering -- repaved that part of the freeway," Hymon wrote.