Pot Holes

[patricks148]

Thing On the BBC news this morning about the state of Britain's roads and there was a report about the number of cars damaged by them.

What are your local roads like?

Here in Inverness its pretty bad, we have had snow, heavy rain and low temperatures of late so that's not helped. Some are so big you could lose a football down.

But i noticed on my drive to the course this morning that a great deal of the problem is bits of road that have been dug up by either, Water, Gas Or Electricity providers. Along our road we had the water company and gas both digging it up in the last year and all those filled in holes have damage to the edges.

 

[Imurg]

The Council around here resurfaced a lot of roads in then last couple of years and they're generally holding up well.
But some of the roads that weren't done are horrendous.
One of the main roads has a section about 50 yards long that is like driving over a ploughed field and one hole is the best part of 6 inches deep..amd, of course, every time a vehicle goes over a hole a bit more gets chipped away.
There are some roads that I just go down at the moment.

According to a guy I heard on the radio a while back, once you get a pothole you have 7 days to plug it by resurfacing a section 1 metre square from the outer edge of the hole. If you leave it more than 7 days you need to resurface a section 10 metres square to eliminate moisture that has tracked through then tarmac. If you don't, then the hole will reappear at then first sign of frost.

 

[upsidedown]

Being a rural dweller there are some shockers down our lanes and even on the A 519 which HiD travels to work too. Can be reported into local council and she has done in the past too.

Noticed in France last week that the road up to the ski resort was pretty ropey with cracks and minimal subsidence but no actual pot holes and they get much severer weather than we do for longer periods, wonder if they up the spec on the tarmac ?

 

[Bunkermagnet]

Have seen some nasty pot holes on the motorways and main A roads round here.
Reported one last week to the police, about 6 inches deep and about 2 feet in diameter. Hit that at 70 and you'll know about it.

 

[Imurg]

Noticed in France last week that the road up to the ski resort was pretty ropey with cracks and minimal subsidence but no actual pot holes and they get much severer weather than we do for longer periods, wonder if they up the spec on the tarmac ?

They probably have a different formulation of tarmac. The same guy on the radio was going on about that too.
He said that you could have roads that would, literally, last for hundreds of years but they'd rip your tyres to shreds in days or roads that would make your tyres last 100 years but fall apart in days or anything in-between. There's an optimum level for each part of the world depending on usage.
But they have to be maintained.

 

[jim8flog]

Simply awful.

The state of our roads left me a £400 bill for suspension repairs on my last car. Not possible to sue the council because it was not one single incident just repeated going over the same old pot holes over a 7 mile trip day after day. Not possible to avoid them on our narrow country lanes with oncoming traffic.

 

[ScienceBoy]

Never had any issues in the three places I’ve lived.

Unless I’m wrong or missing something they are not a massive issue unless your not paying attention, driving too fast or just not expecting them.

I guess I’ve been lucky though to have not had any experience of them.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Bad here, aren't they always in rural areas? Same holes appear and get filled in year after year. The holes seem to get deeper each time 😕

SB, not always possible to avoid as can be on bends, you may only see them last minute and it is often not safe to swerve to avoid them.

 

[ScienceBoy]

SB, not always possible to avoid as can be on bends, you may only see them last minute and it is often not safe to swerve to avoid them.

Unexpected ones are probably the ones that do the worst damage!

Rural Lincolnshire roads were never busy enough to have pot hole issues, Hampshire roads were too slow for them to be an issue and Cambridge roads are always dug up anyway so also no issue there either!

 

[clubchamp98]

Shocking in Liverpool but are being repaired .
I think the method of repair is wrong as the same holes appear every year only bigger.

 

[brendy]

Roads over here are a disgrace. Its not all down to utility companies though. Water permeates down into the sub levels during the winter and when temperatures drop below zero, the moisture freezes and expands enough to swell/dislodge some bits of the weakest areas of tarmac, driving over it then breaks it up. I have no problem with this, its nature and happens. To me, the constant drive to reduce road making costs etc is to blame but similarly the funds to repair them is drying up too.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

Our rural road network was a disgrace a few years ago resulting in a very feisty public meeting which kind of shocked our councillors and senior staff.

Much improved since then.

Additional funding from forestry and windfarm companies plus the three Ayrshire councils working as one roads maintenance unit has helped.

 

[Jacko_G]

Council's do repairs on the cheap now, they patch roads and don't repair roads. First heavy frost or wear from sustained traffic and it all starts to break up.

 

[nickjdavis]

Our roads round Ipswich aren't too bad but I work in Brentwood down in Essex and the roads round there are awful.... there's a stretch of road close to where I work where, within 100 yards there must be 8 or 9 major holes.... you have to slalom your way round them.... being careful to avoid the vehicle coming in the opposite direction who is also slaloming around its own set of hazards!!!

 

[SocketRocket]

One I saw near Bristol:

 

[CliveW]

Last year I hit this as it was full of water and you couldn't see the extent of it. It was unavoidable as a car coming in the opposite direction forced me over. The result was two flattened alloys which couldn't be repaired so I claimed off my insurance. Unfortunately BMW no longer supplied that style of wheel so I had to buy four new wheels and the insurance would only pay out for the two damaged ones. Ouch!

 

[jusme]

As others have said, pot holes are inevitable. It's not their existence that annoys me, but the quality of the repair. Councils are literally throwing money down the drain. The repairs here are opened up within months again. Why bother at all?

 

[patricks148]

As others have said, pot holes are inevitable. It's not their existence that annoys me, but the quality of the repair. Councils are literally throwing money down the drain. The repairs here are opened up within months again. Why bother at all?

some council workers came down our road few weeks ago to do "some" repairs. its was -temps at the time and some of them were full of water and frozen. one that's next to our drive they actually filled bits around the biggest hole as it was frozen, so you just left with a big hole once it thawed. all the bits repaired have all since opened up again

 

[Fish]

Last year I hit this as it was full of water and you couldn't see the extent of it. It was unavoidable as a car coming in the opposite direction forced me over. The result was two flattened alloys which couldn't be repaired so I claimed off my insurance. Unfortunately BMW no longer supplied that style of wheel so I had to buy four new wheels and the insurance would only pay out for the two damaged ones. Ouch!

Why didn't you claim against the council?

 

[Fish]

I see and experience them all over the country, I saw a lot just on Thursday at every roundabout along the M11/A11 after the A14 going towards Norwich, the lorries churn them up as the trailers slide so complete layers of the top dressing breaks away.

The claims into the local councils must be at an all time high, which must be counter productive to having them repaired, although temporary reinstatement's don't last!

The most annoying thing I see is poor communication amongst councils and already agreed times to have services updated, in that, a new road is laid only to be dug up and the water board lay new pipes, then that newly laid road has temporary reinstatement's that fail quickly!