Watching the Tonight programme last night it's reported that the state of our roads is down to bodged repairs by the utilities who go largely unsupervised
When they dig a hole to repair or replace something then the road surface must be built back up in layers to the correct specification so as to match the existing (all UK roads are actually built to a very good specification in the first instance) but these companies have been cutting corners (tut tut)
They core-drilled a few samples around the UK and found an average of 75% of repaired patches to be under spec and that is the reason the surface breaks down and gives pot holes
Cars in my care:
2021 Kia Spottage 1.6 Pez Turbo Dual Clutch Gearbox Trickery
2013 Renner Twingo - donkey work
All well and good, except the bulk of the potholes up my end (oo-er matron!) Are nowhere any near any previous works, including one busy junction where one side almost has no surface left.
Doutless a lot will be down to the utility firms, but tightwad councils must also shoulder the blame. For example, a few years ago our street was in a state, but instead of repairing it properly they sprayed it with tar and sprinkled it with coco pops. When it was new the surface was inch this with gravel - so dangerous I didn't dare take my motorbike out for a couple of weeks.
2 years on it's fecked again, worse that before, and I can't help thinking it was money down the drain that would've been better being saved towards a proper repair. Far too much temporary bodgery going on, then being left long term. My bro' in law is a Civil Engineer in another county - things are bad enough there, but he's stagged by the procedures and repairs used here in Northwanktonshire.
Oh yes, we get the wet tar and chippings here the road outside my office was sprinkled with 'shards' of smaller chippings last summer on a *really* hot day and it never did stick properly the chippings quite like my brake disc heat-shields though and find a lovely corner to get stuck in a squeel away. My tyres like the chippings too and 'collect' some for later
Cars in my care:
2021 Kia Spottage 1.6 Pez Turbo Dual Clutch Gearbox Trickery
2013 Renner Twingo - donkey work
I had to sell the GTV because I couldn't keep up with the suspension work.
The suspension and bushes were just getting wrecked in potholes and ruts.
Not to mention the low profile tyres!
Roads are a disgrace, 12 years of nuLabour "dont use roads, take the bus" attitude and letting the utils. get away with patching up a thin layer of gravel have led to roads no better than cow lanes.
1999 Honda Accord Coupe 2.0 Vtec Automatic
Previously 2002 406 HDi 90 Rapier Monaco Blue
Welly wrote:something to do with rubber/splits/bursts/flat/floppy etc
New Labour, what? The maintenance of roads started to lag behind under Thatch the Snatch, I started driving a van round NE Lundun in 1983 and watched them deteriorate (along with pretty much everything else as the Tories short-termist policies meant the big number at the end of the financial year was all-important and investment in infrastructure took a back seat to annual profits and huge handouts to your buddies). The utilities are guilty of shoddy workmanship but that's not to say the roads don't deteriorate on their own anyway.
When I was actually digging holes in the streets there was a scheme to limit the number of holes dug, we had to wait until the gas board, the electric co and whoever else wanted to dig in the same place. Madness. And then Thatch gave out licences to the cable co.s to dig where ever the hell they wanted, mostly on the pavement thankfully but there were cases of them cutting the roots on one side of the trees down whole avenues, so the fist gust of wind had the whole lot lying in the road
The reason the roads are so bad is because they resurface them all wrong, they just patch the bumps, then the frost comes and the patch rises out of the hole making an even worse hole. The roads round the farm are really rough, in the car its ok but in a tractor its terrible.
To be fair though, her royal Thatcherness embarked on a huge roadbuilding programme and gave us the likes of the M25 etc. As bad and stuffed full as these new roads are, imagine how totally buggered with gridlock we'd be without them.
And what a wonderful road the M25 is, incomplete, poor junctions, inadequate before it was even finished. Jobs for boys bud, jobs for the boys. Still, saved her from having to put any money into public transport
But then 2 successive labour govenrments prior to Herr Thatcher refused to build the M25 at all.
As incomplete as it is (and a lot of that is down to local lobbying) it's several hundred percent better than no road at all, and is but one of several large roadbuilding schemes she approved. A bit like the Nazis and the Autobahns...
Monty Python wrote:All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us IN RETURN? (he pauses smugly)
X: The aqueduct?
R: What?
X: The aqueduct.
R: Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true.
MC: And the sanitation!
S: Oh yes ... sanitation, Reg, you remember what the city used to be like.
R: All right, I'll grant you that the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans HAVE done ...
M: And the roads ...
R: (sharply) Well YES OBVIOUSLY the roads ... the roads go without saying. But apart from the aqueduct, the sanitation and the roads ...
MC : Irrigation ...
O: Medicine ... Education ... Health
R: Yes ... all right, fair enough ...
MC : And the wine ...
ALL : Oh yes! True!
F: Yeah. That's something we'd really miss if the Romans left, Reg.
MC: Public baths!
S : AND it's safe to walk in the streets at night now.
F: Yes, they certainly know how to keep order ... (general nodding) ... let's face it, they're the only ones who could in a place like this.
(more general murmurs of agreement)
R: All right ... all right ... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order ... what HAVE the Romans ever done for US?
1996 406 1.8LX Got a bad case of hydro lock!
1996 406 Executive 2.0 Turbo XU10J2TE No longer hangin' on in there
1997 Honda CB500V
2003 Volvo V40 1.8 GDi SE killed by a nutter in a beemer 5 series
2008 Mondeo 2.0 TDCi Titanium X
"Always look on the bright side of life, dedo, dedo dedodedo"
It's amazing what you can build with a few thousand slaves and some very big whips
Say what you like about Vlad the Impaler but at least it was safe to walk the streets at night. Burglary? Petty theft? Rape? No longer a problem with new Big Spike up the Bottom!
