Linda Longton, Editor

Recently on Fox News Sunday, Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee talked up his efforts to improve his state’s roads.

“We had the worst road system in the country, according to Truckers Magazine,” he said. “Five years later, I was proud to be the governor of what was called the most improved road system in the country.” Huckabee referred to Arkansas’ rank at the top of Overdrive’s Worst Roads list in 1999 and our Most Improved list in 2004.

While we wish he’d gotten our name right, what’s more important is that 17 years after its debut, the Overdrive Worst Roads survey still influences the debate over highway funding. The survey started in 1991, when the Federal Highway Trust Fund was up for reauthorization. A response card in Overdrive asked truckers to list the five worst roads they’d driven.

“Then we can go to the state and federal administrators and say, ‘These are the roads that must be marked for repair as a first priority,’” Overdrive’s editors wrote. “These roads will be identified by the men and women who use them, not by politically motivated interests.”

That poll drew 2,500 responses, and Pennsylvania “won” hands down for the worst roads in the nation. On Oct. 22, 1991, U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, D-Ala., now a Republican, entered the resulting article into the Congressional Record.