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Graham, I wonder if you could pass me some more details of this incident. I'm currently doing some research into incidents such as these and the more info the better.
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Thanks all for your feedback.
To clarify Apart from the last 1/2 mile I was at the head a queue of traffic, but did get overtaken a couple of times by cars going far faster than me as well as having cars pass on the other side of the road.
I have been trying to contact the local council to log the incident but none of the departments seem to be open at the momment. Will have to venture back to the road to try and get some photo's of the loose chippings, the road has been signed but my understanding is that the Council has a legal duty to roll the road and ensure they are not in such a state that they can cause damage to traffic.
grahamw - sounds like the incident your brother was involved in was far my serious than my own, lets hope he manages to get the his excess back. I should have got the details of the cars that overtook me, but without them stopping that probably wouldn't have done any good.
D
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Plod did not attend and have lost all record of the 999 call. Very sadly a motor cyclist lost control at the very same spot and died at the scene 3 hours later.
the 999 call will not have been lost........someone couldn't find it when they looked for it (which can be the case sometimes if the volume of calls are great and it hasn't been recorded in a manner that the searching person is looking for)...or it was on the too difficult pile and they couldn't be bothered to look at all/gave up too easily...or they could find it but didn't want to discuss it with you (for the obvious reason, if your call wasn't dealt with properly and someone died)
it will still be there in the system...and....the Coroner will want to know about that
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I've just ploughed through a long section of fresh chippings on my way in to work today. 20mph signs are fine, but no protection if idiots overtake at their usual 60, or even against cars coming the other way doing only 20.
The council do roll the chippings, but as they don't seem to use tar underneath anymore, they are not actually squashing the chippings down into the road bed, just levelling it.
Naturally there was nothing wrong the day before with the previous surface underneath. But they have to do something with my council tax, so they go out and spread some money somewhere.
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Aint this just typical of todays blame a sue culture. Lets find someone to blame and sue them
Cant possibly be my fault, The hurdles that people who do work have to go through now is crippling. The warning signs not enough for you? Idiots dont take notice of them so its the councils fault? Its rubbish like this that makes the roads inot a poor state anyway as resources have to drawn away to pay "nothing is my fault litigants"
Bet you wil be the first to complain a: when the roads are not relaid, b: when the council tax bills go up to cover all the litigation.
No wonder they are being forced into reducing bin collections.
Doesent anyone take personal responsibility any more?
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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TVM,
Fair point.......but......if the road was re-surfaced properly, there would be no debris left. If the road is re-surfaced cheaply, they bung the chippings on top of the tarmac and leave the road traffic to press them all in.
not so nice for a biker........and damages cars/vans
you could be a compliant non suer yourself and have some clown whizz past and ruin your car, because of poor driving AND the council has done half a job
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I had a major rant at a local Highways Manager this time last year. I was on a bike designed for third world roads when these money wasters did what they laughingly call re-surfaced our main road (A) class, I was told it was an experimental process (result was a load of cracked screens and about an inch of loose gravel), the surface eventually settled but 12 months later (this is a rural road) the surface is breaking up again. I recall threatning to attend any biker's inquest (lest it be my own of course) and create an alimighty stir and get him subpoenad to be there if necessary.
The local authority direct labour force have now taken this work on where before it was done by a Contractor with many years of experience, whilst I know some of the LA workers with the best will in the world they don't have the experience that a major contractor has. I dread their return.
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Spending a lot of money to do a job properly is fine, so is spending nothing and just leaving motorists to find their own way past the potholes.
What is really annoying is when they spend a lot AND leave motorists to finish the job.
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Resurfacing with loose chippings ought to have stopped long ago. Anyone who has ever been on two wheels will testify as to how frighteningly dangerous they are, no matter how slowly you travel. The major problem for bikers and cyclists comes when you need to change position, just before turning right for example. You have to leave the comparative safety of the car wheel tracks you have been carefully following and cross a pile of marbles with the bike snaking all over the place and your heart in your mouth.
On minor roads the problem can last for months on end as there is not enough traffic volume to compress the chippings. The local authority in this part of the world seem particularly to cheapskate resurfacing, even some A roads get it. So far it has cost me one chipped windscreen which was repairable, and a cracked one which wasn't. Putting signs up on a 60mph road advising a max speed of 10 for a five mile stretch just to cover their own backside is not acceptable.
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Robin Reli.
That's exactly why I "kicked off" with this chinless wonder in the local Council - he had no idea.
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TVM,
Personally I believe as I was following the warning signs stated speed and still sustained the damage that the damage was not caused by my actions. In my personal opinion if the council or their contractors have left the road in such a state that the quantity of gravel could foreseeabley damage vehicles using it, the road is unsafe and they should be liable for any damage occurring. I pay my council tax, income tax, road tax, fuel tax and every other tax that Greedy Gordon see's fit to levy on us, and if due to incompetence or penny pinching I sustain damage to my property I believe they should be held liable for rectifying this.
A single stray chip cracking the windscreen fair enough I could accept that, however when the windscreen has been chipped in about 20 separate places when driving on a 2 - 3 mile section of road I would argue that personal responsibility or misfortune can be ruled out.
Sorry to say your rant has come across as a socialist desperately trying to defend why council tax and almost all other expenses have gone up whilst services provision has decreased, which is incidentally not the issue in question here.
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TVM can't possibly be a socialist. He lives in Weybridge.... :o)
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Socialist!
I have never been so insulted in my life!
I think I am becoming a grumpy old man, This site is 75% full of people moaning about something that has happened to them, some misfortune, some dastardly deed that has been perpetrated on them. And its always someone else fault. Some one else to blame.
20 chips huh? did you not think of stopping? did you not think of mitigating the damage? No thought it might have been the fault of the people DRIVING TOO FAST AND IGNORING THE SIGNS? Nah not them.
Nah no need. Its someone elses fault after all.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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TVM,
While I'd agree that there seem to be an increasing number of people moaning about something that has happened to them there is a real problem with the "spray tar and sprinkle chips" method of resurfacing. It's not new either.
In May 1992, headed for the Western Isles ferry, I was just off the top of Rannoch Moor towards Glencoe at around 07:30 in the morning. The road was recently surfaced by the method mentioned here and I was sticking to twenty. Truck coming other way was having non of it and passed at 60+. I'd seen the cloud of chippings around him form half a mile away and slowed to a crawl but still picked up two deep chips in the windscreen and extensive paint damage.
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TVM
Maybe in hindsight as you suggest I should have pulled over and covered the car with the full body cover I should have kept in the boot for just such an occurance, whilst awaiting back up to remove the car from the offending streach of road. However due to obviously lax planning on my part I had neither the car cover or the back up to remove the car and did not want to spend all night sitting in a stationary car by the side of the road.
I'd agree other motorists may have been driving faster than the signs stated, but for the road to be left in such a condition that damage was obviously directly forseeable is surely 'someone elses fault'.
If you don't mind me asking, do you work in a legal department of a council as you are taking this particular issue very personally.
Also please could you give a full step by step guide so myself or other motorists in the same situation can have a better hope of 'mitigating the damage' caused by such road conditions.
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If as some posters suggest the problem is soft paint, then the fault lies with manufacturers and complaints should be addressed to them.
I am surprised however by the number of windscreen chips the OP seems to have suffered in a short time. Are manufacturers using soft glass as well as soft paint (and my own pet hate, very expensive bumpers that aren't bumpers)? I didn't think there was such a thing.
Cosmetics are not at the top of my own motoring priorities list, but if the paint being used is inferior to the traditional stuff people should make a fuss about it. I imagine of course that health and safety legislation lies behind all this, but the car industry has seldom hesitated to build in a bit of 'aftermarket demand', not to say life-shortening flaws, when it could get away with it.
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Lud,
The car is not a new car, its an 8 year old Honda so probably made before the newer water based paints became the norm. To be perfectly honest I can (and have) lived with a few chips and marks on the paintwork, its more the quantity sustained in such a short period of time and more annoyingly the damage to the windscreen that have got me on the warpath.
I know I could just claim on the Insurance for the windshield but I don't see why the insurance company should pay for something which was caused by another party. Someone may also accuse me of pushing their insurance premiums up if I do this!
Anyway so far I've logged an incident with the councils emergency line and also informed the Police as recomended here and by the council worker, and will be looking to progress it when the department is fully reopened on Tuesday.
Should also say thanks to everyone who has contributed their thoughts or expeirence with these kind of problems to this thread :)
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TVM
If you took your family into, lets say,a Starbucks or similar, for a cappucino or latte and a sandwich or whatever, paid your 5 quid per cup and sandwich (just guessing) and you were served with a nice cup of Mellow Birds and the sandwich had something hard in it and broke your tooth when biting down, would you just accept it and walk out ?
Afterall, you have paid for a coffee and a sandwich, and you have got a coffee and a sandwich.
Same principle in that in return for all the money we pay for services,we should get get them to a standard that a reasonable person would expect.
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If there's a hold up on the motorway due to roadworks with ample signage which someone chooses to ignore and rear ends who would you claim against? The organisation doing the roadworks or the other driver? I suggest the other driver.
The Council did a job and provided signage and warnings of the work and a reduced speed limit. Your gripe and claim is with those who caused the damage - namely other drivers for ignoring the signs.
My dad once tried to claim for a new alternator after a loose chipping form resurfacing entered it and wrecked it - Council wouldn't have any of it.
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and you were served with a nice cup of Mellow Birds and the sandwich had something hard in it and broke your tooth when biting down, would you just accept
IF there was a sign saying "beware eat carefully there is something hard in it" and I found something hard in it?
The principal is NOT the same. The fault lies with those who ignore the signs.
But hey I shall just happily pay my increased council tax, accept my smelly bin that hasnt been emptied for two weeks, happy in the knowledge the council is using MY MONEY to fight the case of litigents who should be blaming someone else.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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TVM,
Whilst you are enjoying those benifits from your local council that are much more likely due to the decreasing levels of financial support from Central Government due to the mess that Gorden has made of the accounts of UK PLC. Please at least spare a momments thought to thank me for not increasing your insurance premiums by not claiming for replacement of the chipped windscreen.
If you'd prefer to avoid this going to the council, prehaps you would prefer to transfer YOUR MONEY directly to me to cut out the extra costs imposed by all those pesky legal types, could be a more efficent solution all round. Admittadly it might cost you a bit more initally, but least you can rest easy in the knowledge you won't get another inflation beating rise on your council tax bill and that the roads will still be maintained to the usual high standards!
Also I am genuinely interested in what you would recommend to do in circumstances such as I encounted to 'mitigate the damage' I have only been driving a few years and any insights into how I can improve my driving or protect myself or my car are always welcome.
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The council shouldn't even be using these third-world methods of dressing roads to mask the patchwork of failing repairs and cracks. They would rather spend £900,000 on useless repairs, paying claims and creating reams of 'due diligence' inspection reports rather than £1,000,000 on repairing a road, the saving of £100,000 is seen as a cause for celebration.
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Well
You prevent, wherever possible anyone overtaking you. ( I have done this even on dual carriageways - take as much road as you need to do it.) You leave a very large gap between you and the car in front.
The damage was caused by the car overtaking you, in doing so they drove out of the ruts (where the stones compact into the tar) into the loose stones in the centre of the road.
I got a broken windscreen exactly under these circumstances 35 years ago (and in those days it was shattered windscreens, not merely a chip). I learned then that sometimes you have to control* the way others drive, even at the expense of being unpopular. I have not had a repeat of that in the next half a million miles on british roads.
* if you are clever about it, half of them dont even know they are being controlled.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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TVM - thats exactly the sort of positive, constructive advice that makes the Back Room such a valuable motoring resource.
Next time I am forced to drive down any similar roads I will make sure I take a more central position to try and control other road users who fail to take the road conditions into account.
I will still be attempting to claim off the council for the damage caused, as it was a highly forseeable consequence of how they did the road resurfacing and even the placement of warning signs shouldn't have any bearing on their responsibilities to users of the road. So I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the rights or wrongs of my choice of action!
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TVM
What about the mellow birds ?
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Is that not standard?
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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