Go-o-o-sh Th-i-i-s R-o-o-oad I-i-is Bu-u-u-um-m-py.

None of us use washboards anymore. But its namesake dirt road is around in spades. And it causes hiccup-like speech in those trapped inside the trucks barreling down it. Every now and again, road crews scrape the road flat. But lo and behold, the bumps rise again like little ocean swells.

In my personal experience, the best way to mitigate washboard’s grating effect on the belly and vision is to simply drive faster. That way you tires pretty much skim the crests of washboard. Granted this increases the risk of skidding or fishtailing but that’s half the fun. Turns out this is all very ironic because a group of physicists recently concluded that the only way of stopping washboard from rising out of dirt roads is to drive slow. And by slow they mean like 5 miles per hour slow. To figure this out they created a computer model of the grains of dirt on a road to study how the ripples form. According to Science News, which reported their findings:

Any bed of dirt or sand, even a very smooth one, has minuscule irregularities that slightly jog a rolling wheel. Each time the wheel hits a bump, the computer simulation showed, it pushes the dirt forward a bit, enlarging the irregularity. Then, as the wheel passes over the top of the bump, the force of its descent pushes dirt forward into the next bump. Repeat these actions a hundred or more times and the familiar pattern of ridges appears.

So basically, I think the take home message is “suck it up.” Because let’s face it, no one’s going to drive 5mph on a dirt road. And if there’s no permanent way of keeping them at bay, I think they’re he-he-e-e-re t-o-o-o sta-a-a-a-a-y-y-y-y.