Close to where I live is a steep windy hill. It is north facing and, in the winter, always becomes iced and covered in snow when appropriate.
Over the last few weeks, the road has been resurfaced with a very grainy concrete-like topcoat, presumably as a speed limiting method. However, in addition, at regular intervals down the hill, there are now also groups of several narrow quite sharp rumble strips. Even coming down the hill at a very moderate speed these produce a distinct jolt to occupants of a car (motorcyclists must find it even worse).
My question is, how are these strips going to react to ice? Without any technical knowledge at all, it seems to me that they will each become mini ski-jumps, making it far more likely that a driver/rider will skid off the carriageway. Whilst on one side, there is a steep soil bank with scrubby bushes at the base, the other side of the road has a thorn hedge followed by a very steep slope down to the valley floor.
Am I worrying about nothing or does this truly represent an increased safety hazard?
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Hi Duchess,
I too don't have technical knowledge but I think what you are referring to is called something like 'shell grip'. On a road to my house, there is a road with a 30 mph speed limit (used to be 40) with this beige coloured grip on some of the bends (it goes downhill). That stuff really does stop you from skidding. There are some rumble strips further down which don't really rumble but they're there anyway.
In reality, the brown stuff is there to give you more grip so I shouldn't think it ices up quicker than normal road. The red 'rumble' strips are made out of the same stuff so whilst they don't rumble, I'd expect them to have more grip than the rest of the road.
I hope that's helped because it's confused the hell out of me.
--
Adam
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IIRC the coating you mention is an acrylic anti skid surface. Perhaps the logic is that in icy/snowy weather the slowing effect of the various measures you speak of (which are presumably also well signed) will have a net benefit in terms of road safety. If rumble strips pose a threat in ice etc. I can't think they're any worse than all the other variations on the road hump theme which I always feel make life a little harder for motorcyclists in particular.
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I have found that rumble strips on a downhill slope tend to make halfords front cycle lights become unfastened from the bracket so they fall off into the road and smash. A great benifit for road safety.
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I like those anti-skid things - life saver at traffic lights if there's no one behind you.
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It's supposed to be (near-as-dammit) impossible to skid on those anti-skid bits.
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