Road potholes

[wandringstar]

Here's a topic where I think most will agree on, the shocking state of our roads, they really are awful, where I live you have to navigate potholes and the only way to completely avoid them, would be to drive on the wrong side of the road.

 

We were supposed to be in austerity but the council round my way found £5 million to stick a retractable roof on the swimming pool to copy Wimbledon.

 

We have neglected our infrastructure in preference to deadbeat social costs and causes, we have a £1.7 trillion debt and the roads are bust.

 

I asked the council if I could fix a few down my road free of charge, just clear out the hole, whack some hardcore in, and tarmac it over just to protect my suspension and tyres, but they wouldn't entertain it.

 

We have not been governed correctly for many, many years. Its not funny anymore.............

[wymberley]

Here's a topic where I think most will agree on, the shocking state of our roads, they really are awful, where I live you have to navigate potholes and the only way to completely avoid them, would be to drive on the wrong side of the road.

 

We were supposed to be in austerity but the council round my way found £5 million to stick a retractable roof on the swimming pool to copy Wimbledon.

 

We have neglected our infrastructure in preference to deadbeat social costs and causes, we have a £1.7 trillion debt and the roads are bust.

 

I asked the council if I could fix a few down my road free of charge, just clear out the hole, whack some hardcore in, and tarmac it over just to protect my suspension and tyres, but they wouldn't entertain it.

 

We have not been governed correctly for many, many years. Its not funny anymore.............

Not quite sure of the exact details, but here (Devon) the council have a system in place doing that very thing.

 

Edit: There we go: http://www.devonlive.com/devon-county-council-recruit-public-volunteers-to-fill-potholes/story-29784042-detail/story.html

Edited April 4, 2017 by wymberley

[guzzicat]

A Pal of mine on Tyneside made some signs up "National motorist annoyance org, hole number 136b THIS IS A LISTED HOLE", made no difference tho.

[panoma1]

Makes you wonder what the £millions in road fund licence and the obscene amount of duty on fuel has been spent on currently and over past years.....oh! that's right......foreign aid and the UK's contribution to the EU!......and for the future, squirreling shedloads of cash away to pay for HS2

[subsonicnat]

Winston Churchill was the first one to DIP INTO Road fund licence..

Downhill from then on,its used for everything but the roads..

My misses hit a pot hole,A lady at the petrol station thought the air was low in the tyre,So when she got home asked me to check pressure..

The side wall had an egg shaped bulge on it,if I had been driving at speed,which she doesnt do..

The damn pot hole could have killed us,,I kid you not the pykies could make a better job of it than the council wallahs..And you wouldnt have cones out for days either,Just stop the traffic and get the hole filled in minutes not days..They never use tar on the joint so first car over it breaks the seal

Another hole again in 4 weeks..

[oldypigeonpopper]

hello, this has been going on for years, a chap i know a ships captain disembarked from his ship in liverpool docks at about 10/11 pm then going back to his then residence hit a pot hole at 50/60 mph, that was the end of his working life for many years and had to retire from the shipping industry, 6 months in hospital/ a few operations and years of hospital visits etc etc i went to the court on the day of judgement, £100,000 compensation, not much when you consider what it takes to become a ships captain of the big super tankers

[wymberley]

It's going to get worse; the internet will ensure that it does. The only way to prevent it is to completely rebuild the road network. Roads were designed/built to serve a purpose. If you wanted a new bed/settee/whatever, you went to your local bed/settee/whatever shoppe and they delivered it in their van. Now we order from w.w.w. and a huge multi drop vehicle pulls up to do the same thing. All vehicles are increasing in weight/size beyond that which many of our roads were designed to carry. Factor in the Sat Navs and the future is bleak.

[KFC]

It's typical of this flippin' country, never invest in anything, just try to get maximun out whilst putting minimum in and never do anything until it is going to cost at least a hundred times what it would have cost if they'd just got on and done it.

 

Back in the early seventies they knew that the A604, a standard single carriageway, needed to be a three lane motorway because it linked the M1, M6, A1 and later the M11 with the East coast, Harwich and Felixstowe.

So, to save money, they made it a dual carriageway A road.

 

Now they're having to build a completely new road between Cambridge and Huntingdon at the cost of billions. It's only taken them nearly 50 years to start it

 

I think the government is just marking time now in the same way that they've done with energy, rail and are now doing with the NHS, just let it go to pot until we have no choice but to turn to private contractors and PFI.

 

The really daft part about it is that the private companies that are now taking on the work are owned by foreign governments so our infrastructure is now becoming renationlised by other countries' governments who can suck the money out of us to subsidise their own infrastructure

 

It's only a matter of time before they start saying 'If you want decent roads then you'll have to pay for them' then all these ANPR cameras will start charging tolls and we'll get clobbered with another tax.

 

Still, musn't grumble

Edited April 4, 2017 by KFC

[7daysinaweek]

hello, this has been going on for years, a chap i know a ships captain disembarked from his ship in liverpool docks at about 10/11 pm then going back to his then residence hit a pot hole at 50/60 mph, that was the end of his working life for many years and had to retire from the shipping industry, 6 months in hospital/ a few operations and years of hospital visits etc etc i went to the court on the day of judgement, £100,000 compensation, not much when you consider what it takes to become a ships captain of the big super tankers

 

Hi Opp

i suspect that was the dock road he was driving down? i drive it regular and have done for he last 30yrs. It is as bad as ever, driving anything over 30mph you risk bouncing into the Mersey river docks at some parts. The road resembles the lunar landscape, potholes galore, very uneven, no clear marking for which side of road and intersected by tram lines. It is like Wacky races at rush hour. With the nearing completion of the Liverpool2container port the increase in lorry traffic is huge and will increase from its current traffic from the port at approx 8000 trucks per day to 19000 per day by 2020. Where has all that money gone?

Edited April 4, 2017 by 7daysinaweek

[Velocette]

I fear that it is not generally recognised that a road is not a passive thing which,once repaired will stay perfect forever. Roads react to weather,stress and shock in an almost organic way and it is a constant/impossible job to attempt to maintain them in "as new"condition. Whilst it may be annoying to find potholes in the road,,there is established legal remedy if the Local Authority is found to be at fault regarding the accepted inspection and repair regime. There are also systems in place for reporting dangerous road damage and its a sensible thing to do if one spots something that needs attention. BTW,,anything under 40mm deep in the carriageway would not usually be regarded as dangerous.

[Penelope]

Unless you hit one on a road bike, then 40mm can hurt you.

 

I fear that it is not generally recognised that a road is not a passive thing which,once repaired will stay perfect forever. Roads react to weather,stress and shock in an almost organic way and it is a constant/impossible job to attempt to maintain them in "as new"condition. Whilst it may be annoying to find potholes in the road,,there is established legal remedy if the Local Authority is found to be at fault regarding the accepted inspection and repair regime. There are also systems in place for reporting dangerous road damage and its a sensible thing to do if one spots something that needs attention. BTW,,anything under 40mm deep in the carriageway would not usually be regarded as dangerous.

[Velocette]

I imagine it may do,,,but,,40mm is the nationally accepted legal limit for remedial intervention.

[Imperfection]

Come to Cambridgeshire where our roads look like they've been ploughed.

[arjimlad]

I report those I find whilst driving or cycling online, which creates a publicly available record. They tend to get filled very quickly in South Glos. If not, I tweet the local authority about them & then they get fixed.

 

https://www.fillthathole.org.uk/

 

Ralph Brazier was a friend of a friend

 

http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/cyclist-ralph-brazier-died-after-12632669

Edited April 4, 2017 by arjimlad

[wandringstar]

They are worse than ever, so bad, the government has lost any control, its a quick sticking plaster every now and again, my street was built in 1967 and its the original surface, but its not just minor roads, its every road. I am seeing massive multiple potholes, people swerving around them.

 

The materials and labour to carry out these repairs are not astronomical, why cant communities just take it off the governments hands and working as a team, get them all fixed, give us a permit to shut the road and knock them off village by village, town by town, do them on a sunday, every sunday over a couple of years.

 

I would happily muck in and get them done...............properly.

[oldypigeonpopper]

 

Hi Opp

i suspect that was the dock road he was driving down? i drive it regular and have done for he last 30yrs. It is as bad as ever, driving anything over 30mph you risk bouncing into the Mersey river docks at some parts. The road resembles the lunar landscape, potholes galore, very uneven, no clear marking for which side of road and intersected by tram lines. It is like Wacky races at rush hour. With the nearing completion of the Liverpool2container port the increase in lorry traffic is huge and will increase from its current traffic from the port at approx 8000 trucks per day to 19000 per day by 2020. Where has all that money gone?

hello, thanks to reply, as happens it was a hole left by the then water board, i know from experience on TWA here they did not backfill after a water leak very well and had sunk a foot oh his motor was a write off to

[100milesaway]

It is really disgraceful when you factor in all the wasted money on things like road humps and other utterly useless mini roundabouts , all that wasted tarmac could have been used to fill the holes in.We need a Mr Sensible to head all highways departments. from Auntie.

[guzzicat]

It is really disgraceful when you factor in all the wasted money on things like road humps and other utterly useless mini roundabouts , all that wasted tarmac could have been used to fill the holes in.We need a Mr Sensible to head all highways departments. from Auntie.

Yes & driving round inner London,HUMPS, everywhere So nearly stop ,pull away, up through the gears again,done thousands of times an hour all that unnecesary burnt fuel is , that helping the atmosphere ?

[wandringstar]

A forum first...........100% agreement that the roads are dreadful..............its not good enough for the worlds fifth largest economy,

 

As an aside, I was in Majorca last year, the roads were superb, ok, there is no frost, but even so..........(oh, and the mobile phone signal was perfect everywhere aswell).

[Velocette]

They are worse than ever, so bad, the government has lost any control, its a quick sticking plaster every now and again, my street was built in 1967 and its the original surface, but its not just minor roads, its every road. I am seeing massive multiple potholes, people swerving around them.

 

The materials and labour to carry out these repairs are not astronomical, why cant communities just take it off the governments hands and working as a team, get them all fixed, give us a permit to shut the road and knock them off village by village, town by town, do them on a sunday, every sunday over a couple of years.

 

I would happily muck in and get them done...............properly.

 

 

That sounds attractive,,but completely uninformed. Would you have the skills to saw out the damaged area,dig out the damage,put 30mm of base layer in,,whack it down..put 30mm top layer in ,,whack it down then finish it with a strip seal and arrange for the disposal of the debris. Before you got to the start of the second year the patches you put in would start to degrade because no attention was paid to the underlying cause. In no time you would be chasing your tail,,never quite catching up and starting to understand why roads are very tricky to keep in good condition. This makes no mention of the insurance claims against you when you fail to repair the road in a timely and professional way,,and keep it repaired.

A forum first...........100% agreement that the roads are dreadful..............its not good enough for the worlds fifth largest economy,

 

As an aside, I was in Majorca last year, the roads were superb, ok, there is no frost, but even so..........(oh, and the mobile phone signal was perfect everywhere as well).

 

 

Not so,,,

[arjimlad]

And check whether highway engineers hold shares in traffic light companies for a start, all those pointless traffic lights on large roundabouts. When they conk out, the traffic usually flows better !

[krugerandsmith]

 

Hi Opp

i suspect that was the dock road he was driving down? i drive it regular and have done for he last 30yrs. It is as bad as ever, driving anything over 30mph you risk bouncing into the Mersey river docks at some parts. The road resembles the lunar landscape, potholes galore, very uneven, no clear marking for which side of road and intersected by tram lines. It is like Wacky races at rush hour. With the nearing completion of the Liverpool2container port the increase in lorry traffic is huge and will increase from its current traffic from the port at approx 8000 trucks per day to 19000 per day by 2020. Where has all that money gone?

 

Probable use to fill in the sink holes that have appeared at the terminal.

[la bala]

Come to Cambridgeshire where our roads look like they've been ploughed.

Amen to that.

[wandringstar]

oh don't you worry velocette, I have the skills and knowledge to fill a pothole professionally,

 

you see, I was just throwing ideas around, you always will get the naysayers, anything can be achieved if the will is there,

 

 

ok, you are the only one in the country who thinks the roads are not dreadful, I concede.

[la bala]

In our area if the pothole is shaped like a star it get it gets patched star shaped, no squaring up and under cutting for key.