Discussion elsewhere about deterioration in tyres and suspension systems prompted me to do a Google search. For anyone who doubts that bad road surfaces damage cars, here's a helpful page describing the things that happen when you hit a pot-hole:
www.caaquebec.com/en/automobile/a_ch_14.asp
I'm becoming increasingly angry about the disregard of the highway authorities in respect of such damage. And, of course, they add insult to injury by building "safety" humps that cause further damage.
And, just as a footnote, I live in a town where almost all the road surfaces are in poor condition. The one that wasn't was the main road, the A1081. Guess which one is being completely reconstructed? It involves the total closure of the main route through the town for five weeks. The BP garage trapped in the closed section is receiving no compensation for total collapse of trade, so its staff say. The explanation? I guess the local authority has no money do deal with the side roads (eye-watering increases in council tax notwithstanding) and the Highways Agency does what it wants with the trunk road, especially if it needs to spend money to justify next year's budget.
Any insights -- especially from insiders or ex-insiders -- into all this nonsense would be appreciated.
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You can claim compensation against the council if your vehicle's tyres or suspesion are damaged by potholes.
Re compensation. One of the major roads in my town centre road has been closed for around six months because unexpected problems were discovered during the work.
None of the shop owners, many of whom have lost a great deal of trade at what is the busiest time of the year, have been able to obtain compensation and it will be some time yet before the road is reopened.
Yet council officials, who seem to have vast powers, don't seem to grasp that if potential shoppers are thwarted from reaching their destination, then it is even easier to reach outlets on the outskirts of the town.
The result is, of course, that many town centre shops have closed down in recent years and more are likely to do so because a loss of business, combined with high rates, is crippling them.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Re compensation. >>
None of the shop owners, many of whom have lost a great deal of trade at what is the busiest time of the year, have been able to obtain compensation
Unfair to the shop-owners. But it also strikes me as a trifle unfair that you and I should pay compensation to people (& it IS you & I who pay) because of the incompetence of public officials.
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Talking about spending money to justify budget, there's a perfect example on the A34 between Congleton and Alderley Edge.
Firstly they have put up laods of chevrons, including ones on the slightest corners you could ever imagine. I mean literally, you could take these corners at 150mph if you so wanted, without breaking a sweat. (On the other hand they haven't put up any signs to warn that the dip in the road there is prone to flooding - that'd be useful.)
Then you get to the piece de resistance. Marton village. An absolute masterclass in money-wasting.
The village is still 60mph limit. On the edges of the village there have always been the 'please drive slowly' signs. They recently added those rough chevrons on the road, that rattle your fillings as you go over themm to encourage slowing down. Seems fine to me. Except that, within 6 months of doing this, they tried to turn the whole of the village, and over a mile either side of it, to 30mph zone. So the chevrons are a waste then, they're a mile inside of the point where you should already have slowed down.
The new 30 zone stretches a ridiculous way outside the village, there's absolutely no point to it, and they've now had to gaffer tape over the signs anyway, as they obviously hadn't actually gone through the correct process to change a limit in the first place.
On top of this they just spent a week with half the road closed while they burnt up a stretch of completely undamaged road markings, in order to re-mark them exactly as they were before. In the meantime there's a stretch 300 yards up the road with the road surface completely worn away in places.
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Funny you should mention this, as I got a letter through this morning telling me that my road and the surrounding ones in Headingley, Leeds, are to be resurfaced. About time, too, as in places the surface is down to cobbles, and when they start falling out the hole is about 10 inches deep!
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The council resurface our street a few months ago. Everyone recieved letter stating not to park the cars on the street for a week, as it may hinder progress.
Great I thought, as the street had been in a bad state and getting worse for the past 10 years. Finally they were going to fill in the craters.
Yhet came - dropped - what looked like gravel - flattened it - and went. All this in a matter of 2 hours. At first I thought that this was surface preperation, or a kind of underlay..more the fool me, that was the job done and dusted. The street started to erode pretty much straight away. All though the pot holes had been filled at the time, these are makeing a come back.
Nice to know where our tax is being spent.
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Many of the roads around my area, including a critical main through road, were recently given the cheapo treatment i.e. a layer of tar or whatever and then stone chippings laid on top.
Apart from the frustration of being trapped in your own driveway because the roads are gridlocked by diversions, some the work was so shoddy that the council had to demand that several sections of the main road were redone because the stone chippings had disappeared and left just a black surface.
Even more annoying is the damage done to vehicles by stone chippings being flung up for a considerable period afterwards and it meant a long detour to and from home to avoid certain roads and preserve the car bodywork.
In the meantime, even some of the redone surfaces now require a second repair.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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We must be the only country in world that uses this tar and grit method of trying to prolong a roads life.We are now spending the least of any country in europe on road repair and construction and how it is stating to show.Where other countries build bypasses ,bridges ,tunnels and new motorways we put chevrons ontop of worn out roads.Its like most things in the uk we produce masses of paper about what we need and then fail to carry out the plan as all the money has been spent on people making masses of paper reports.Germany and Italy might be on the edge of bancruptcy but they still manage to have an ongoing transport programme of new roads and rail network.
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I?m livid about road surfaces at the moment, you wouldn?t believe what goes on here, not so much Warsaw but the rest of the country. You?d think I was exaggerating so I won?t go into detail, suffice to say that it?s very drepressing to have your new car and have to drive it over roads that have been filled in with the ceramic from a broken up toilet. So many unmade roads that it?s hardly worth washing the car at all. You have to drive it to believe it.
For me, the single most important critrion for a really good drive is top tunes on the cd player, completely ruined when you?re smashing down potholes or tramlines and over slabs of concrete and the cd player is skipping like a school girl.
Road surfaces totally ruined my weekend.
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Change to a minidisk player and you won't have any problems. You can abuse them too, as the collection of disks scattered around my car testifies.
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I wonder how many accidents would be avoided if every single road in the county was perfectly level, smooth and provided the optimum grip.
...probably not that many but they'd be nice to drive on.
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Adam
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Some time ago I had a friend who often wrote to his the local authority asking what the pending (unnecessary?) road works were about to do and how much that was going to cost, whenever he could learn in advance of something about to happen. On quite a few occasions he told me of projects that disappeared. I have seen locally three attempts to modify a turn-off and it is worse now than it was originally. Had I known, I would certainly have taken before and after photos.
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probably not that many but they'd be nice to drive on.
In the dry yes.reason why most roads have a camber is to clear water as fast as possible,the more water that lays in the road the more chance you have of losing car on flat road
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Steve
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Thanks to the recent hike in oil prices, the Treasury stands to make an unpredicted 2.4bn extra this year, and 3.5bn next year if the price is maintained (even more, if it goes up!)
What will that be spent on, I wonder? Almost anything but roads, I imagine...
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I imagine quite a few Transit vans with tinted windows.
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Adam
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Thanks to the recent hike in oil prices, the Treasury stands to make an unpredicted 2.4bn extra this year, and 3.5bn next year if the price is maintained (even more, if it goes up!)
How come? Is that just on VAT? My understanding was that duty was a constant rate on fuel regardless of the cost of the oil itself. If anything they'll make less as people drive a bit less to cut costs, or at least that's what I would have thought.
I think this is a conversation for another thread.
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Oh for an edit button.
Where I say "constant rate" I mean "constant amount"
As in, duty is Xp per litre, not X percent per litre.
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The duty is a constant per litre but if the cost of the petrol goes up, so does the vat which is charged on the price including fuel duty. I suspect the treasury figure quoted may include taxes on oil production too.
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