It's a problem that several communities throughout the state are dealing with: rough road conditions and not enough funding to fix them. But one road is creating more than just a few bumps and potholes.
BEAVER CREEK TOWNSHIP -- It's a bumpy road ahead along this stretch of Old US 27 in Crawford County's Beaver Creek Township. The road just a few miles outside of Grayling is raising concerns.
"We have alternate routes because of the road being so bad, we're losing fire trucks," says firefighter with the Beaver Creek Township Fire Department, Bill Miller.
Simply going 30 miles per hour down the road makes for a not so smooth ride.
"My wife and I road down this road probably a month ago. We were just doing 30 miles per hour and we spun out right in the middle of the road," says Miller.
Why isn't the road getting repaired? It's pretty simple: the Crawford County Road Commission doesn't have enough funding in their budget. In the meantime, drivers say they're forced to use the shoulder of the road...but that's where questions come into play.
"A year ago today in fact, I was driving on the shoulder and a state police coming the other way saw me doing it, turned around and stopped me, explained to me that it's against the law to drive on the shoulders of the road. He was going to give me a ticket but let me go," says Beaver Creek Township resident, John Reynolds.
Reynolds says since then he's getting mixed messages.
"The question is, what is legal and what isn't legal. The sheriff said it's alright, state police tell me no, if you do this you will be ticketed," says Reynolds.
7&4 News called the Michigan State Police post in Houghton Lake and the Michigan State Police traffic division out of Lansing. They both said that it is illegal to drive on the shoulder unless a driver is avoiding something in the roadway.
Therefore, if a roadways is full of potholes, drivers are allowed to drive on the shoulder at a slow speed.
Meanwhile, the Crawford County Sheriff's Office had a similar response.
"If we catch you driving down the side of the road, we may stop you, we may not. But I don't think you're going to get a ticket from my office. We might just say 'hey be careful.' I'd prefer if they didn't drive 55 miles per hour down the edge of the road since you shouldn't be driving that down these roads anyways," says Crawford County sheriff, Kirt Wakefield.
The Crawford County Road Commission says since they don't have enough funding to actually re-pave the road they plan on at least doing some patch work on Old US 27 this spring.
