New Jersey Overwhelmed By Potholes [AUDIO]

If you drive anywhere in the Garden State, you'll notice many highways look like the surface of the moon, littered with potholes.

State Department of Transportation (DOT) officials are doing their best to remedy the situation.

"We've had a really bad year with thawing and freezing and a little of snow and rain in the daytime and at night the rain becomes ice, so that's had an impact on the roads, unfortunately with potholes," says DOT Commissioner Jim Simpson.

The temperatures and the asphalt  are still too cold to make permanent repairs, so DOT crews are making temporary patches. Simpson says they try to respond as quickly as possible.

If the police or a municipality calls in a pothole, or they hear that it's a big pothole, what is the response?

"Right away - we'll respond frequently within two hours, but within 24 hours we like to get to the potholes," Simpson says.

He adds that once temperatures warm up a bit, the pothole killer trucks can be used to create permanent patches, which is much faster and efficient than having DOT workers put down asphalt and press it into the highway.

Simpson says even with the large number of potholes we're seeing this year, he's confident that by the beginning of June, all of the potholes in the Garden State will be patched.