As an American living in the North East, I'd say American roads are crap. I'm not sure if construction methods are part of it, but it seems to largely be down to absurdly shoddy repairs.

Growing up in the UK (which has similar winter freeze-thaw cycles to contend with), I was used to seeing pothole repairs done with hot asphalt, jackhammer-like packing down of repair material, and steam rollers. In the US it's quite common to see them just throw few shovels of loose material into a pothole and pat it down with the back of a hammer - or sometimes just leave it loose for the next car's tires to throw right back out again.