I have to say that I'm pretty concerned about driving the kit this spring/summer/autumn as the roads have now just deteriorate to such an extent, that for small, light cars with smallish diameter wheels, and the size of some of the craters, I can see a serious accident looming!

I know the country is skint BUT there has to be a duty of care to the driving public. Speed doesn't necessarily kill and yet there was a significant investment in a 'solution' using cameras. The poor state of the roads WILL be killing people, nothing is being done!

I know I can use upmystreet etc to report local problems but my point is a more general observation about the infrastructure as a whole, which is helping to turn us into a third world country.

I'm seriously considering a 4x4 just to get around!

saw a few 9 inch deep, and wide pot holes. also, some 9 inch wide ones that go right across the whole road. an absolute disgrace.

I am sure the duty of care only goes if its above a certain set diameter.


If its not deep enough etc. they say they are not at fault - if it is big enough though, they are liable.

Yup, some of them would be scary to hit in a 7.. dread to think about what would happen on a bike!

+++ and + to what you say start reporting them
Jacko

going to attach a small camera to my car when i'm back in glasgow on thursday to film some of them to complain to the council lol

they resurfaced 2/3 the width of my street, and left the rest. Surely one the machines are there its cheaper to just do the lot?! Especially since its the joins that fail first,

its awful round here, especially in my mini, speed bumps are painful enough with the hard suspension, i dread to think what a pothole would do. im on 12inch rims, imagine a mini with only 10inch rims...

maryhill road in glasgow's right down the original cobble stones under the tarmac. interesting to see they're not coming up in any place, just the tarmac

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoelP
they resurfaced 2/3 the width of my street, and left the rest. Surely one the machines are there its cheaper to just do the lot?! Especially since its the joins that fail first,

---

There's a web page on my council web site for reporting potholes.

I sometimes think that if nobody tells them where the potholes are - how will they know?

We all winge about them but how many of us actually take the trouble to help the council by telling them where they are?

I reported about ten three weeks ago and it took about ten days but they did fill them all in.

you should see edinburgh, thanks to the tram disgrace (which used ALL our money) the roads have been patched together temporarily. theyve taken to running into the road and patting some tar into the craters...after the first but has gone over it its out again.
what the hell are we paying taxes for?!

im sure its the same story everywhere, but im amazed at how bad it is here

i got 2 pinch flats in the first 9 miles of a 30 mile ride today, both from realistically unavoidable potholes.

you think potholes are dangerous in a car? they're worse on a pushbike!

quote:

---

Originally posted by mookaloid
There's a web page on my council web site for reporting potholes.

I sometimes think that if nobody tells them where the potholes are - how will they know?

---

good job i own a 4 x 4 aswell. But round here in the midlands i am now seeing not just holes, but whole sections of road sinking. I make a point of driving round them and hope i get pulled one day for it so i can say i was driving to the condition of the road.

I would not like to own a bike as most of the bad parts would easily throw you off.

I also hate how the councils say if we dont tell them then how do they know! its like me saying 'unless i get pulled for not having tax/insurance/mot by a copper then how am i suppose to know!" that really grinds my gears.

I feel that the roads are so bad here in places, that the roads should be closed. I agree that if they cared for road safety just like speed cams then this would have been done last year. They are not spending money fixing them and i feel ripped off buy it.

how will it get better? i dont think it will as the money needed to replace so much road (not just filling the holes) isnt there so its only going to get worse.

The country's screwed.

We can't afford it is the bottom line.
If we spent what needs spent on the roads, there would be sod all for anything else.

I don't see the roads being brought back to what you would call a generally acceptable standard in my lifetime.
I really genuinely mean that.

The problem is so widespread now that it would take money that we as a country do not have.

Unless someone discovers an exportable commodity or service, it won't be happening.

On my way to work there's a 'Temporary Road Surface' sign just before you get the the first bunch of huge potholes. 18 miles later, there's one for the traffic coming the other way. The local council say they have 'fulfilled their duty' by warning road users!! They did put some stuff in the holes but it was spread out all over the bits of road that weren't damaged by the end of the day. I drive on the grass verge now. It's smoother.

There's an app for that (well android anyway)

Fixmystreet - Link to Android Market.

i agree the local roads are shocking in the uk. i was in belguim last week and i can safely say their local roads are a lot worse, so much so that i have bucked a wheel on the brand new 2 week old 60 reg company car which i will have to explain to my boss on monday.

[Edited on 13/2/2011 by ashg]

So why can't we sack the people concerned? We do "pay" their wages after all

I wonder what would happen to a lawsuit against these people for stealing our money (it is theft after all, they just call it paying) and not even doing anything with it.

quote:

---

Originally posted by zilspeed
The country's screwed.

We can't afford it is the bottom line.
If we spent what needs spent on the roads, there would be sod all for anything else.

I don't see the roads being brought back to what you would call a generally acceptable standard in my lifetime.
I really genuinely mean that.

The problem is so widespread now that it would take money that we as a country do not have.

Unless someone discovers an exportable commodity or service, it won't be happening.

---

^ i think you're right! but there's not many medicine generated taxes, so if taxes are only spent on where they are generated, i don't think there would be much cash for the hospitals.

so, yeah, i agree they should be spent where its generated, but i don't think its practical plus is the country still billions of £ in debt?

But if you had a car crash you'd be screwed due to the non-functional NHS

quote:

---

Originally posted by blakep82
plus is the country still billions of £ in debt?

---

This is a symptom of a common phenomenon in the third world - and now more recently in the first - it's a simple phenomenon known as "asset stripping"

They stop spending on proper routine maintenance of infrastructure so they can spend more on the touchy feely aspects of the business which generally garners more votes - and on a burgeoning administration. They rely on the inbuilt safety margin of the infrastructure and generally it will respond by surviving for ten years or so, but then once it starts failing they have to totally rebuild it to get proper service from it. But at that stage they have lost most of the skills needed to properly manage it (the engineers), and also no longer have the income to properly manage it as it has all gone to the touchy feely things and the burgeoning administration.

The next phase is to let things get so bad that there is a public outcry - votes become at risk - and they start speaking of new taxes to cover the cost of the infrastructure upgrades, and because voters are so fed up with the state of things they agree - the politicians then look like heroes for saving the day.

The right way to do things is to strip the administration, trim the touchy feelies, re-employ the engineers, fire all the politicians who voted for reduced maintenance in the first place, and start rebuilding the infrastructure.

The bad news is that roads and lack of proper policing are the fist sign of problems, water and sanitation and lastly electricity problems will soon follow.

F**K that they're not stealing any more from me

Devons roads are horrific, on my industrial estate one particular bend was so bad that I reported it every day for weeks, and nothing was done, spoke with a guy in the town that was doing temporary repairs, ie tipping gravel into holes

a 11m stretch of road, 19 offical potholes, and to be officially a pothole apparantly it has to have sides of 4" deep?

in total 31 sizeable holes, my golf with huge rims and elastic bands for tyres, couldnt be driven that route.

then all of the sudden they are redoing the road properly, heard the reason why, a guy visiting on business in an extremely expensive porsche came round the bend, hit two of them good and proper, apparantly the bill to replace all 4 rims and tyres was in excess of £10k LOL

Edinburgh is worse than its ever been, the cold winter + the trams have destroyed what were already bad surfaces
(never mind all the junction designs they messed up for the trams as well...)

and I've found a few huge new holes on some of the back roads out here - one thats only a couple of inches deep but the full width of the road and about 3' - 4' long and growing every day
at what point do you stop calling it a pot hole and just say a gravel road instead ?

quote:

---

Originally posted by blakep82
maryhill road in glasgow's right down the original cobble stones under the tarmac. interesting to see they're not coming up in any place, just the tarmac

---

I was out in the Lakes at the weekend in a mates Boxster. The roads there are truly shocking despite in the next few months being some of the busiest in the area with tourists. They have for years simply skimmed them with tar and chippings and now in places they have completely fallen apart. Coming down the side of Windermere driving someone elses car was truly terrifying as the road was flooded in places meaning there were potholes flooded with water. The only indicator was the car in front nearly bottoming out as it thumped into a hidden hole and the hardcore strewn across the road where it was getting dragged up by passing cars.

If the money tourism brings to the lakes isn't justification enough to resurface those roads correctly then what hope for anywhere in Cumbria.

I am getting ready to IVA and hoping to get out in my Indy but at the moment I would be very wary based on what I have seen locally. They have already been out once and thrown tar into the holes but on the bus route outside my house there is hardcore an inch or more in diameter all over the road.

Where I live all roadsurfacing seems to be done by contract firms. Would we be better with council run surfacing teams? I know the equipment investment would be huge but long term surely its better than paying contractors through the nose? We complain to the council but no one of any use works for them anymore. It costs a fortune to get streetlights changed etc.

Rich

Re-surfacing of just about any sort only works when the structural layers of the road are in good nick - once they start failing then the only worthwhile exercise is to completely re-build the road. That's why you need proper design and maintenance to preserve the integrity of the structural layers - delay the maintenance and the structure starts failing exponentially with time and you very soon reach the stage where any maintenance can only ever be temporary and you are throwing good money after bad.

That's why you should re-surface the road before the layman would think that it's necessary.

you should try riding a motor bike in the rain with all those pot holes!! scary stuff

Hit one a few weeks ago, front wheel came so far up the strut that my fender hit the horn and chipped the paintwork, that's about 8 inches travel on the forks! and it's only a cruiser, lucky not to bend the rim or fall off

I'm using the steel rims on the car as it's too bad for alloys

[Edited on 14/2/11 by Mr Whippy]

I'm starting to be very grateful that my toy car has high-profile tyres (185/70 x 13" ). I always intended for it to have an "old-fashioned" look, and it's now paying dividends...

[Edited on 14/2/11 by David Jenkins]

i hit a large pothole on the way to / from one my my SVA tests, it launched the front n/s wheel about a foot in the air and sent the whole car flying, not fun!

Wait until someone gets hurt because of it

why dont we all just stop paying tax? people only pay proper attention when you hit them in the wallet.

if they took some money out of the dole, maybe wed get the service we all pay for.

quote:

---

Originally posted by A1
why dont we all just stop paying tax?

---

Anyone seen any roads been repaired ?

I haven't bloody great big holes every where you go

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=261767&id=510374248&l=e8b113aa6d no need to register

Its really like a third world country! I'm just getting more and more p*ssed off with the whole situation!

The Essex Council are neatly side stepping their damage claims due to potholes. SWMBO's Smart car was damaged (broken spring and bent shock) by a huge pothole so we photographed it, measured it, and sent all the evidence including GPS co-ordinates to the Council. Their answer was that they had recently inspected the road and everything was ok so it must have happened after their last inspection (duh!) They denied liability as they had decided the road does not warrant any more inspections........... grrrr

the only way to send the government a message is for the whole country to go on national strike for a week, lets show them who is really in control of the economy!

Well nearly bit the dust on Saturday. Driving along a stretch of road, crested a slight hill at 50ish in a NSL A road and didn't spot the pothole as I was concentrating on a bike that was about to overtake and a car at a junction further up. Hit the pothole. Front left blowout, only just managed to keep it on the black stuff and not take out the motorcyclist. Check for damage - minimum is a trashed sidewall on a NEW tyre replaced from last pothole impact and a bent 15" alloy.

Coyoteboy

That is really terrible and it sounds like you have been VERY lucky!

I repeat my original post, how do we do something about this?

what really pisses me off is when they spend money on other things that arent necessary... theres a road up here where theyre putting in new pavements down each side, with crossings and everything...but not touching the road that pretty much has a 2-3 inch rut right down the middle...

quote:

---

Originally posted by RazMan
The Essex Council are neatly side stepping their damage claims due to potholes. SWMBO's Smart car was damaged (broken spring and bent shock) by a huge pothole so we photographed it, measured it, and sent all the evidence including GPS co-ordinates to the Council. Their answer was that they had recently inspected the road and everything was ok so it must have happened after their last inspection (duh!) They denied liability as they had decided the road does not warrant any more inspections........... grrrr

---

Razman,

I live in Suffolk, just north of the Essex border, and when I drive around locally I quite often cross the border each way. I can always tell when I'm in Essex, because the roads are so appalling....

Suffolk's roads aren't that great, but the ones in Essex (even the main roads) are dreadful, and have been for all the time I've lived here (25+ years).

On closer inspection it wasn't just the tyre that bit it, the rim and the coil on the same corner are all trashed. Gutted.

I was out for a drive yesterday and my worst fears were realised!

The pot holes are enormous when you're in a seven esq car! They are bound to be a bigger contributing factor to accidents than speed! Don't believe the propaganda that speed kills, its POTHOLES!!!!!!

quote:

---

Originally posted by coyoteboy
On closer inspection it wasn't just the tyre that bit it, the rim and the coil on the same corner are all trashed. Gutted.

---

common knowledge that Councils find it cheaper to pay for minor claims than the cost of resurfacing take pictures get witnesses wherever and put a claim in