[imagesource: Geoff Upson]

Potholes are the bane of any driver’s existence.

While our local authorities are slow to fix the ever-occurring problem, some people resort to a few rather creative ways to speed up the process of getting it sorted.

There was this woman in South Africa who drew attention to the massive pothole on the R63 by bathing in it circa 2014, and who could forget Pat Symcox’s infamous rant back in 2019?

I’ve also seen people turning them into pretty flower beds, or drawing white circles around them to make them stand out more, but others are a little less mild about their advocacy.

Geoff Upson, a 30-year-old handyman, is one such person.

A self-professed road safety campaigner, Upson has gone on a rampage of drawing luminous green penises around the local potholes.

The image above is Upson’s work, but in case that’s not enough, here are more neon dicks:

Image: Geoff Upson

Hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, he says he has drawn around 100 penises around potholes in a bid to force his local council to fix them.

The Guardian reports that Upson said he’s “about sick of calling Auckland transport”:

“So what I’ve done is I’ve gone and drawn a great artist’s impression of a penis.”

The spray paint has cost him a fairy penny, per VICE – NZ$400 (around R4 100) to be exact – as some of his artwork is fairly sizeable:

“The stretch of road from here to the end of that other penis is 48 metres. The width of my lines is approximately 1,2 metres,” he says.

Perhaps he’s taken the schoolboy obsession too far, though, as he is now being threatened with police action:

Upson received a call from police last week, following a complaint over his graffiti, the New Zealand Herald reported, which Auckland council says poses “a safety risk and distraction” to drivers, as well as being dangerous to carry out, according to Stuff.

But to be fair, Upson is latching on to a big problem that needs sorting, as Stuff further notes that there were 59 pothole damage-related compensation requests submitted to the local transport authority Auckland Transport in 2017.

The potholes often remain unfilled and only get sorted out once the media reports on the phallic graffiti.

He also tried another angle, which was probably less effective:

Image: Geoff Upson

A Manchester man doing the same thing to potholes in his local area in 2015 called the council “prudish” after they reacted furiously to his phallic art, calling it “obscene”, “stupid”, “insulting”, and “a waste of valuable time and resources”.

Debatable.

[sources:guardian&vice]