EDITORIAL : POTHOLE TAX; CAR DAMAGE CAUSED BY CRACKS, CONSTRUCTION AND POOR STATE OF ROADS ADDS UP.

CALL it the pothole tax. For that's what it really is, a hidden tax on your car for damage caused when it runs over the darn caverns of broken pavement on our streets and highways.

Cracks, construction, potholes - year after year the lack of maintaining our roads adds up to a big bill in car damage.

Californians spend $1.2 billion a year on repairs caused by damaged roads, while the state in 1996-97 spent $809 million on repairing roads, according to a report by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, a national coalition of organizations interested in transportation policy.

The average car owner in Los Angeles will spend about $1,325 over the life of the vehicle just to pay for road-inflicted damages, the report stated. That adds about 10 percent to the price of a midsize sedan, like popular Saturn and Honda models.

The life expectancy of pavement on the state's highways and roads quickly is approaching, and it's clear the California Department of Transportation failed to anticipate this. But now a Caltrans official claims the agency will spend about $12 billion in the next few years on pavement and construction projects.

We urge them to stick to that plan because the only people who benefit from the status quo are car manufacturers and mechanics.

While the report only looked at freeways and arterial roads, it is clear there is a major problem on city streets in Los Angeles. As Jesse Patterson of Woodland Hills said: ``All streets are bumpy, cracky, (and have) potholes.''

It's time for the city to make the same kind of commitment the state has made. It's a service residents have paid through taxes and something they deserve that would make the city livable, not to mention drivable.