What causes washboarding on Iowas farm to market roads?
On August 14th 2009 Terry Hagen was headed eastbound on a gravel road when he lost control of his motorcycle, hit the guide wire in the ditch and was thrown from his motorcycle. Mr. Hagen died as a result of the injuries suffered in the accident. There is no word on whether he was wearing a helmet. Gravel roadways in rural Iowa present much different challenges than do paved roads. First of all most of those gravel roads were constructed as farm to market roadways, meaning they were for heavy agricultural equipment with tires much larger than a motorcycle tire. Agricultural equipment tires on gravel can cause deep ruts or what I describe as sort of a rock stream bed with high sides, from where gravel has been pushed aside by the wide tires. After the rut in created a smaller tire can be forced in a direction not intended, thus causing a loss of control with a result similar to the one with Mr. Hagen. Counties grade these roads on a regular basis, or at least are supposed to. One proble
