Bridge Expansion Joint Damages Vehicles On Broken Arrow Expressway

Tire troubles for some Tulsa motorists Thursday morning. A problem with the Broken Arrow Expressway caused quite a shock for many drivers. It happened in one of the westbound lanes on the BA near the

Wednesday, January 3rd 2007, 2:00 pm

By: News On 6

Tire troubles for some Tulsa motorists Thursday morning. A problem with the Broken Arrow Expressway caused quite a shock for many drivers. It happened in one of the westbound lanes on the BA near the Yale exit.

News on 6 anchor Craig Day says the surprise is now adding up to thousands of dollars in damages.

The morning commute on the Broken Arrow Expressway is usually a challenge. Thursday morning's commute was really tough. Broken Arrow resident Bernd Trautwein: "My wife was with the girls on the way to school and then she called me and said she hit something with the car and she had two flat tires and pick me up. So we switched the cars, and so she's going to school and I'm waiting for a towing service."

He wasn't the only one. At least eight drivers got flats. One right after the other. "Just going along and hit something in the middle of the road. Tore a hole in two tires."

The thing tearing up tires turned out to be a piece of metal, which would pop up from a pavement joint as cars passed over it. Wear and tear on the road sheared four bolts holding the metal in place.

An Oklahoma Department of Transportation crew came in, closed the lane and cut the piece away, making a quick fix. But despite that quick fix, repair costs are adding up, into the thousands of dollars.

The question now is who will have to pay up for repairs?

The News on 6 checked with ODOT. Usually in cases of damage to vehicles, ODOT is only responsible for repairs if they're notified and don't respond in a timely manner. In this case, once workers found out about the problem, they immediately went into action.

So it didn't take long to fix the damage, but the damage to cars was done, making the morning commute for those drivers a lot more challenging.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation says drivers can submit claims to the department. It usually takes 100 days before ODOT can respond to those claims.