Flash Mobs For Potholes

The “flash mob” – a spontaneous gathering of people at a time and place, usually arranged via text message – is one of those odd features of life in the digital age. Often, flash mobs assemble to do something silly like having several dozen people freeze in place in the midst of a public venue or stage a pillow fight. But according to the website EnglishRussia, recently drivers in the far eastern city of Vladivostok organized a flash mob to do something constructive: fill in a pothole. The dozen flash mobbers who turned out were car owners fed up with the city administration’s inability to keep up with road repair, so they decided to take matters into their own hands – literally. The mob had a modest goal, to try to fill in a single pothole, but organizers say that their larger mission was to bring attention to the city’s crumbling roads and to shame local authorities into doing a better job of street maintenance. They also collected donations for future repairs in boxes marked “for roads without holes.”