When was the last time you called 311 to report a pothole? Have you ever Tweeted the location of a pothole, to see what would happen? The occasional person calling or Tweeting might be more effective than doing nothing at all, but one BRO reader has turned us on to a completely different approach to solving the city’s pothole problem. It’s a self-Tweeting pothole.

It all started when a Panamanian news station got so fed up with the problem that the crew decided to install small hockey puck-looking Twitter-friendly devices in some of the most notorious potholes throughout the city. Every time a car would run over the auto-Tweeter, a message was sent to the Department of Public Works (DPW). The tweet included the exact location, and a message generated directly from the mouth of the pothole.

It didn’t take long for the DPW to get cracking on fixing the problems, as the tweets just kept rolling in.

There was no indication whether The Tweeting Pothole is also triggered by bikes. Regardless, if enough cars take the brunt of the Tweeting, then everyone wins.

It would be interested to know what the DPW does with the devices once they repair the potholes…