State of the Roads

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boristhespie
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State of the Roads

Post by boristhespie »

Jeesus, going to Halfords the road were completely knackered. Where I live the temperature never gets too low but still holes afoot deep and the roads breaking up completely. Salt can't help. What are the councils going to do to be abale to afford road maintenance after this cold?
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Post by Xaccers »

Apparently Northampton are still owed bucket loads of money from central government for the damage done to the roads from last February's cold snap!

Some councils are refusing to repair roads as they are using the potholes as speed reduction devices rather than expensive speed bumps.
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Post by boristhespie »

I saw an axel killer on the main road into my town and a human killer if a cyclist hits it.
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Post by Xaccers »

There's a nasty one about a foot or so out from the kerb on one of MK's grid roads, which being dual carriageways you could potentially hit at 70, and probably crash and burn.
MK seems to have one of the better councils so it will be interesting to see how long the pot holes last.
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Post by HDI »

Speed bumps will seem cheap in comparison to the compensation claims from owners of cars with damaged wheels , suspension etc , not to mention injured motorcyclists.
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Post by CitroJim »

It's shocking. Back in the 80s in Cyprus we used to joke that roads were made mostly of potholes joined by bits of tarmac.

Never thought that description would ever be applicable to A roads in the UK but there we go, we can now. All part of us embracing our new third-world status I guess...

Maybe we can appeal for international aid to repair our crumbling infrastructure :lol:
Xac wrote: Some councils are refusing to repair roads as they are using the potholes as speed reduction devices rather than expensive speed bumps.
That's just a cop-out on the part of the council and pretty disgraceful too. As you say Boris, one day soon, one of those mega-pots is going to kill..

Now what about the situation we have in Newport where there are big potholes right in front of a hump? So bad even a Xantia crashes over them...

They say the makers of pothole repair kits are set to do well in the next few months....
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Post by Old-Guy »

Do you report dangerous pot-holes? ASAP? If not, why not?

You local highways department (County Council or Unitary Authority) has a webpage for the purpose; or go to http://www.fillthathole.org.uk/

The appalling state of local roads is the fault of successive governments, in particular this government's obsession with micro-managing everything:

Local authorities receive over 60% of their funding from Whitehall. Government closely controls local authority budgets - within fine limits, how much and on what.

The Ministry of Transport (part of what was the DoE) controls local highways department budgets in considerable detail; the MoT dictates what proportion must be spent under various headings - maintenance coming some long way after various safety initiatives (traffic calming etc). This requires an army of civil servants at both central and local government. The larger the payroll, the bigger the budget, the greater the power and patronage at every level.

When Ministers announce 'initiatives' and 'funding' for 'new' road safety schemes, that money invariably comes out of existing budgets already 'agreed' with every highways department.

Government bodies cannot do what a commercial organisation would do when circumstances dictate - simply transfer money from one budget head to another.

Thus you will understand why Whitehall was recently telling local authorities to cut back on grit - the MoT had cut-back spending on salt/gritters/snow-ploughs etc., not your local Council.

Secondly there is the way that minor road repairs are done. Someone complains; an engineer visits, inspects and marks; an order is issued and (often remarkably quickly) the repair is made. BUT, the contractor won't do anything about any damage not marked out. In the bad old days when Highways departments had their own work-force, common sense generally prevailed. The blokes repaired any other damage while they were at it, including preventative maintenance (a bit of hot tar where a pot-hole was threatening to start).

Finally, although astronomical sums are paid out each year for damage and injury caused by damaged roads, the insurance premiums that pay for it are an 'essential' expense under a different budget head altogether.

It suits both ministers and mandarins that Local Authorities get blamed for the state of our roads (and much else) that is really their fault.
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Post by CitroJim »

Funny they can always find money for fancy speed humps though isn't it :evil:

I've seen new speed humps built on potholed roads around here. Common sense clearly does not prevail :twisted: :twisted:

Surely, the roads are patrolled regularly by highways engineers. Or is the idea to get the public to report problems another way of saving money. Employ the public to do their job for free...

The mind boggles at all of this...
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Post by Citroenmad »

The roads since the recent cold speel have been horendous, im sure its a mixture of the salt, cold weather freezing and popping the surfaces and snow ploughs.

One small country road near me was ploughed, though it has taken the surface off an already awful road, so now there are piles of grit at the sides of the road, huge holes in the road and grit everywhere.

There are huge holes opening up all over, even on main roads. The roads in our town were never great but the amount of massive holes there are now, you really have to be on the look out for them not to fall into one.

My dad hit a huge one on Saturday night with the Caravelle, it was on a country lane and night so not easy to see. He said there was a huge bang and the car shook. The next day we had a look, the wheel trim was missing, the steel rim is badly dented and the tyre is damaged, which were brand new just two weeks ago.

We returned yesterday to see if we could find the wheel trim, we did, just next to the hole. It was smashed to bits. So we stopped and took some photos, measured the hole and have reported it this morning. It was 4.5 inches deep with very very sharpe edges.


Anyone hitting it with low profiles and alloy wheels would have cracked wheels im sure. Luckily it has big section van tyres but it still has suffered damage. Need to get the tracking checked now too.

More holes are opening up everywhere, the roads are shocking at the moment, though they dont seem to do anything about them. Probably lack of funds but as Jim says, they have more than enough money for speed bumps etc but not to actually fix the roads.

It was on the radio this morning as i was in the car saying that many cars will have steering and wheel isues as a result of how bad the roads have become over the last few months.
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Post by andmcit »

You're right Jim, the Uk is now a third world country in many ways.

It's largely trading on an ancient infrastructure that was built in the
dark ages (sewers/drainage etc) and has had pitiful investment in recent
times (everything else). I guess with some key ulitities, they're now owned
by foreign shareholder outfits who will invest money at home first so
everything is largely pitched up at our end.

I lost a brand new Michelin and VSX rim a year back hitting one at 50mph.
I'd wondered why there were a load of cars parked hazards flashing further
down the road on the open moor road until I became another one. It caught
4 of us and I had to walk back and drag a ruddy big lump of timber off the
verge to be a visual deterrent to prevent any other driver being caught.

An angry phonecall saw it fixed hours later with frightening efficiency!!:roll:

This country has gone to the dogs. The thread "are all garages crap?" could
be expanded to "is this sad country of ours crap?"

Andrew
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Post by Toby_HDi »

andmcit wrote:..."is this sad country of ours crap?"
The short answer...Yes it bloody well is! The recent roads have taken their toll on the Alfa's suspension but as you rightly say Andrew, it's not just this issue, but seemingly everything about this country.

Right....where's my island......
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Post by XantiaDaveEire »

absolutely ,the roads are already a joke here,but what really gets me is that the idiots just fill it with gravel and thats what my €619 pays for every year :evil:
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Post by addo »

Last time I tried reporting a decent pothole, the local council wanted all my details.

I declined this request, suggesting it had no bearing on the hole in that road (for which I had already provided ample detail), and offered to put the loose chunks of bitumen in a fruit box and deliver them to the council. Click...

Not only did they essentially hang up on me, they didn't fix the hole! :?
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Post by meexi »

why cant the government use some of our excessive road tax and fuel tax to fix the bloody roads?
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Post by HDI »

Bet the roads in London are ok though !!
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