Safe Speed Forums

Has any research been carried out into the poor state of the roads around our regions.
I deliver marble to fireplace shops and have become aware just how bad the roads are in every area I deliver to.
Apart from the road humps, which are bad enough to negotiate with a fragile load, I have found recently that there seems to be little or no maintenance of the roads. Large pot holes appear, drain covers sink and lorry tyre grooves cause tram lines in nearly all the roads I drive on.
Has any one any comments or similar observations.

Indeed, the roads where I live are appalling. The council have just resurfaced the main toads such as the A470, and parts of the A4059, but the rest of the roads in the community are dire.

Where I live (Cwmaman stereophonics land ) some of the roads are little better than dirt tracks. I recently spoke with my local councillor about my street, and in all fairness within a week the major pot holes (ie the ones you disappear down) were filled in.
The main problem is that these fills will erode quickly, and you're back to square one.

The rest of the road is breaking up, and cracked everywhere.
This is simply a consequence of under funding of the roads, which will now cost more to repair had the local government just maintained it properly.

I would like to know how much of my road tax actually goes back into road maintenance

I have also found an interesting site at www.abolishroadtax.com

There are some interesting ideas here that could create more investment in our roads (as long as that’s where the raised revenue goes) , but I imagine it wont be popular with you high mileage drivers.

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'Detritus, get yer stoney arse over ere'

Personally, as a motorcyclist, setting aside the awful state of the roads to start with; I'm getting really cheesed off with the current thinking in how best to resurface rural B-Roads in Northern Ireland. The method seems to be based entirely around laying bitumen and then dumping a 2 inch layer of gravel on top, safe in the certain knowledge that after a few months most of the gravel that doesn't stick will have been flung into the verges by skidding cars and crashing motorcyclists. This method is always used in conjunction with a complete lack of signage to indicate that the road is a hazard.

Agreed.

There is a road near me where potholes appear in the same place every few month.

Although my council aren’t too bad in filling them, the last time they did it I could honestly see potholes developing in the same place within days.
This has been happening for at least over a year now.

Im no expert on road surfacing but surly there must be better material to fill in these potholes and making it last for longer periods than whatever methods/materials they are using right now.
Rest assured though I can well imagine the current materials or methods they are using now will no doubt be the cheapest too.

As a new biker I think I probably look at the road surface I am riding on more than any other time in my life.

Reason is there is just so much completely lethal crap on and in are roads. Apart from all the potholes and all the crap getting dropped on the roads there are incredibly poorly designed manhole covers just ideally placed mid corner to have a biker off and under the following traffic that can safely take the corner on 4 or more wheels far faster then any sane biker would try.

And as far as I can tell it is only getting worse

[cynical]Maybe they do this so they can put a camera up when the gravel starts to wear away, then say "look, accidents are going down"[/cynical]

Personally, I would rate road conditions as one of the biggest factors in accidents at the moment, in three ways -

Vehicles impacting with potholes deep enough to blow tyres, cause defective steering and in once case rip off low vehicle skirting,

Vehicles driving on the wrong side of the road to avoid potholes

Cyclists having to swerve to avoid gaping chasms.

Round our way, the council come out almost immediately if you report a pothole, spray some paint round it, then bugger off for months on end.

Meanwhile, the budget is open for new humps, pinch points, coloured paint....

Perhaps the strategy is to allow holes to get big enough then call them "traffic calming" !!

I live on a faily new, small, housing estate - new to the point that they are just starting to finish the roads.

On the entrance to the site they have put a speed bump that puts the vehicle onto a raised red brick section that is level with the pavement. this section exists for the area of a t jnction and then goes back down to road level.

The problem is that with the road now level with the pavement it is hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. Solution - put reflective bollards up on the edge of the pavement.

This morning - a number of cars queued up to get out waiting for a lady having to use the road with her single child buggy because the bollard stops her using the pavement - Genius!

Sorry o/t I know - but I saw "traffic calming"!