If motor vehicles could smile, they’d be all grins because there are lots of happy drivers here on the coast and elsewhere in Maine these days, thanks to scores of new paving projects. Just when you’re sure a particular stretch of roadway is destined to be a pothole-infested washboard forever, voila, trucks and crews show up and magically turn your street or road into a smooth, shiny stretch of black pavement.

Let’s face it, many of Maine’s streets and highways were in sad shape — really sad. Those who traveled Route One found themselves either hugging the middle of the road or driving in the bike lane. We’re sometimes a little slow on the draw, and the first time we saw a driver in front of us  with his right wheels well over the white line in the breakdown lane, we commented on it and were told he was merely trying to avoid the rough pavement caused by thousands of cars as well as heavy trucks. We soon discovered many other drivers weren’t choosing the middle of the driver’s lane, either. Rough roads take their tolls on cars, and the longer between repaving, the worse the damage.

Often, repaving does more than preserve our vehicles. Sometimes, it’s a matter of pride. For example, we found it embarrassing in recent years that the approaches to our capital city of Augusta presented the wrong image for visitors. The roads had that unkempt look, like “Who cares?’’

Those of us who live on side roads or a peninsula have come to accept the fact that we aren’t a priority because we don’t have the traffic. We just growl when we travel on rough pavement and continue to hope it will soon be our turn. These days, when we head up off the peninsula, we’re smiling all the way up Route 27 or the River Road, enjoying the trip much more without bouncing all over the seat.

Roads cost money, and Maine has lots of rural streets and roadways to worry about, so we’ve all had to learn to be patient over the years — or at least try our best to be.

At any rate, in recent weeks, we’ve had good reason to smile when we get behind the wheel of the car. Some roads still need improvements, but it appears we’re getting there, with both state and local road crews hard at work. You might even say that new, shiny, smooth, black hot top ranks right up there with a special Christmas present.