You're driving home on Route 9 outside Albany after picking your kids up from soccer practice. Your front tire drops into a crater-sized pothole the county patched two weeks ago, and your SUV rolls. You wake up in the trauma bay with a fractured femur, three crushed vertebrae, and a traumatic brain injury that ends your career as a contractor. When you sue the county, its lawyers move to dismiss on day one. Their argument? The county never received "prior written notice" of t