‘We get peppered’: Loose gravel on I-25 breaks windshields, damages vehicles north of Las Cruces

RADIUM SPRINGS, New Mexico - Loose gravel on a five-mile stretch of Interstate 25 is responsible for thousands of dollars worth of car damage, motorists who live in Radium Springs tell ABC-7.

"It's awful," said Mike Martinez, who has had five vehicles damaged by debris on I-25. "We get peppered."

On Friday, state vehicles were sweeping the gravel off of the roadway between mile markers 15 and 19 for hours.

"Any time we have weather like we did on Tuesday and Wednesday, what happens is the water goes into the roadway and then it froze and kind of pops off that layer," said Ami Evans, a spokeswoman for the New Mexico Department of Transportation.

"I think at the end of the day, they just need to rip it up and repave it," said Ricky Christian, who has a cracked windshield and multiple chips on his car's paint job. "That's the only way you're going to fix it. The road's just going to continue to deteriorate."

Evans did confirm that the state plans to repave that stretch of the highway, but could not provide a set timeline yet.

"It's still a little ways out," she said. "But we're really trying to stay on top of it."

"We pay taxes to have our roads maintained," Martinez said. "It's very frustrating because it comes out of our pocket."