The condition of Britian's roads is despicable. We are one of the wealthiest developed countries, with high transport taxes, yet we do not maintain our roads to an adequate standard and then add additional uneven surfaces like humps. Road users are having to fork out money to repair their cars and pay yet more tax as VAT on the job. The goverment cannot loose by not repairing our roads.
The answer for some has been to buy vehicles that are designed for off road use, now these are taxed even more through road tax licence, benefit in kind and latest of all - higher parking charges. So much so we now have a more unequal society than ever.
We shall still have to await a test case for damage to a vehicle and/or person caused by a road hump. This might bring some sanity back on our roads.
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Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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Well, when you have coucils working to "meet targets" and "increase local profits" they very often forget they were actually supposed to serve the people in the first place. Ever heard of local official saying "we met the targets, we repaired all the roads, and you know what - there is even some of it left so we are going to pay extra £50 towards your rubbish collection" instead of "we decided to spend extra few grant to put some chicanes and bumps to make sure ambulances don't get to you on time. That shall keep property market spinning." . :D
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[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
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Something about speed bumps:
tinyurl.com/yf2ywd
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runboy
Sometimes real life is hard to believe. These humps had been place since 1992 and they had been patched in the past, yet they have just deteriorated rapidly. This says that they are too high and not soundly constructed for the traffic they were designed for. It beggars to think what damage has been done to the tyres, suspension, tracking of the huge number of vehicles in those 15 years.
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Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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A lot of the problem is also the utility companies who dig up the roads to lay pipes or cables, and then effect shoddy "patchwork" repairs afterwards. This happened on a road near me which was resurfaced beautifully, and then a year later destroyed by the laying of gas pipes. Within months the repair patches had sunk below the main road surface, and the whole thing was wrecked.
I agree a lot of problems are poor investment and neglect, but this is also a major factor. These companies should be forced to resurface the entire road when they dig them up.
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A lot of the problem is also the utility companies who dig up the roads to lay pipes or cables, and then effect shoddy "patchwork" repairs afterwards.
the annoying thing is that they can do it properly - I bought a new house some years ago and we had a classic where the road had been laid a few days and then the electric company dug it up in several places. Turned out the council hadn't formally adopted the road, so they came back and redid it - practically invisibly mended it.
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The recent repair to the suspension of our car under warranty must have been needed by the appalling bumps that area all over our area. My parents live abot 200 yards away and there are three humps just to reach them.
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>>My parents live about 200 yards away and there are three humps just to reach them.
Surely Espada III, if they only live that far away it would be better for you, your car and the environment, if you walked to see them. You could easily start a new game - jump the hump!
Luckily I do not have any roads I use regularly that have humps on them, because I live out in the sticks. The ground clearance at the front of my car is only just sufficient to clear the square humps that just fit between the wheels, so I take them slowly and accurately. If it holds someone up, then tough. My attitude is they are an obsticle that could cause damage to my car, and I did not put them there.
My feelings go out to someone who either has back problems or has a broken bone. Speed humps and rough roads do not consider those who are ill. I wonder if someone with a broken spine could sue a council if the speed humps caused further injury or paralysis during their journey to hospital?
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Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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They've just added more humps to the road leading into my estate and thrown down a blanket 20mph limit past the school but on the main road leading to it too. The funny thing is, at school time, you can barely move because all the parents double park so you'd be lucky to hit 10mph.
At every other time of day it's a dead wide open space. Only now they have bright red speed bumps on there too. Fortunately, these new ones seem smaller so in Dad's car you can drive over them without feeling a thing. I wonder what mine will be like?
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My feelings go out to someone who either has back problems or has a broken bone. Speed humps and rough roads do not consider those who are ill. I wonder if someone with a broken spine could sue a council if the speed humps caused further injury or paralysis during their journey to hospital?
It is also BEFORE picking up sick/injured people that ambulances face problems. There are some villages and housing estates in Suffolk/Cambs that are so infested with these wretched things that they cause significant delays to emergency vehicles, both fire and ambulance, who have to slow right down to avoid wrecking their suspension.
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maybe if the council didnt send a man out to spray the holes with paint then a week later send another man out with a pot of tarmac and a what looks like a large plunger to half bash the tarmac in with then we might not have such pot holed roads.
If you dont make sure the substrata is sound then theres no point filling the holes
a bit like putting car filler (porridge) on paint it might stick for a week but then will start cracking and let the frost etc behind it and fall off again
then the whole process starts again -man with paint etc etc
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If bad road surfaces cost a grand total of £320m a year, that is about £10 a car.
If we are getting bills that average £328.60 a car that is damaged by poor road surfaces we get a total of 3% of cars damaged every year.
An additional thing to consider is that to eliminate bad road surfaces it would cost a lot more than £320m a year(prehapps it would eliminate bad road surfaces though???), so it is not worth doing anything about the problem, as a society. The remaining issue is one of fairness. Does society have an obligation to ensure you don't damage your car driving? The answer is a desisive 'yes'. Drivers should not be out of pocket, some by just under £1k because we fail to upkeep the road system. At some point though it may be easier to pay these drivers compensation than to ensure all roads are like billard tables and we should be able to decide what constitutes as a road in unreasonable condition. We can't eliminate suspension problems caused by poor road surfaces.
Another frustration comes when we are activly causing these poor road surfaces. A good way to see this is that if you did agree with road humps and their objective in slowing traffic down you would have not any sympathy in people going to fast over them and damaging their cars. In other words if people are going to speed then they derserve their car to sustain damage.
The other frustration is that these road humps keep on falling apart and require a lot more maintance and therefore create a lot of disruption, however this does not mean to say road humps are an expensive way to enhance road safety.
For those who do belive that road humps are good safety devices these figures will not change their mind. For those who don't like road humps for whatever reason these figures may not mean that much since. They either tend to think of them as anoying obsticals that get in their way, or they don't belive that they enhance safety at all (frequenly both, reasons apply. Wonder why?).
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In other words if people are going to speed then they derserve their car to sustain damage. The other frustration is that these road humps keep on falling apart and require a lot more maintance and therefore create a lot of disruption, however this does not mean to say road humps are an expensive way to enhance road safety.
I damaged mine and eventually paid out nearer £800 (two front ball joints and all the arms attached, plus suspension bushes)..........simply because i drove over the damned things at the speed limit...
why should i not be able to drive along at the speed limit, particulalry as i regularly drive in the small hours when there's not a pedestrian to be seen
some of the things are 6-7 mph only if you've got any sense ( i now have)
the other thing is some of the other current threads relate to being friendly to the environment...which it isn't if you keep slowing down to a crawl then accelerating up to a higher speed
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The speed limit is the limit. I saw the other day on a thread where people were moaning about crashes happening because drivers drove at the posted speed limit. The posted speed limit is just that, it is not an invitation to drive at that limit no matter what. Why do you think tyour council wants you to travel at 30mph?
I have a suspcion that your council if asked would recomend that you drive at a speed lower that 30mph across the road humps. As for humps made to go over at just 6-7mph that does sound silly, and I would conceed that they are very badly designed.
The good thing about speed humps is that it makes drivers go the desired speed, which may be lower that the posted speed limit. The bad thing as you point out is that they cannot be changed from one hour to the next. It is like imposing a ridged speed limit without any consideration that it maybe inaproapate at certain times. The people who impliment these policies may be thinking about the lowest approapate speed on the road at its busiest time, not the aproapate speed at the least busy times.
On setting speed limits there are some rules of thumb planners go by. Prehapps the lowest apropate speed would still be to high to make the speed limit stick, as in the case of your 6-7mph humps?
If you are worried about the environment you could drive slower and coast up the the speed humps. Safety does seem to get in the way of environmental objectives. Think of asbestos or the amount of extra wieght cars have put on to get 5 Ncap stars.
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i quite simply would like the opportunity to drive up to the posted limit if i wish to...(when it is safe and prudent to do so)..........i can't because some cretin has put speed humps in
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They aren't cretins westpig. They're evil.
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Do we need speed humps/cushons at all. I recently visited Belgium and in residential areas they have choke points to restrict the road width but with no priority signs or markings, and also totally unmarked road junctions. As no one has prioriy drivers slow down in self preservation.
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Only yesterday I was watching a bloke with a can of yellow paint marking out a side street junction for narrowing,so two cars can,t pass and,in heavy traffic,will cause gridlock.These things must cost thousands to put in,yet the roads round here are in bits.And when they are not busy obstructing the roads they are ripping out the Yorkshire stone kerbs and replacing them with concrete.
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And when they are not busy obstructing the roads they areripping out the Yorkshire stone kerbs and replacing them with concrete.
Ah, continuing with the improvements to the quality of life for which our borough, district and county councils have been famed since the nineteen-fifties.
Concrete looks so much cleaner and more modern, don't you think?
The sooner they demolish the rest of the buildings over fifty years old and put us all in high-rise flats with ceilings 5ft 6 from the floor, the more deliriously happy we will all be. We won't even want cars, we'll be too happy at home.
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>>If bad road surfaces cost a grand total of £320m a year, that is about £10 a car.
If we are getting bills that average £328.60 a car that is damaged by poor road surfaces we get a total of 3% of cars damaged every year.
I think your calculations miss out all those cars not covered by Warranty Direct. Also your 3% is probably an underestimate, probably nearer 10%. Warranty Direct's figures would not include many vehicles that have suffered uneven tyre wear, tracking knocked out of alignment, knocks to the underside of a car including the exhaust, etc, not to mention the coil springs, dampers, and suspension bushes. You only have to see the score marks on the humps to realise they also do physical damage to some vehicles.
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Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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Surely the areas with the speedbumps are the exact areas where they should be putting speed cameras instead?
Rip the humps out, and install part-time speed limits, during the day, appropriate to the road. So in a small residential area on a road known for accidents, set the limit at 15mph from 7am-9pm say, and install a speed camera there.
That way no damage to the car, and more chance that motorists will stick to the limits. Much more useful than putting the cameras on main roads where going 60 in a 50 is much less likely to cause damage.
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Let's not forget that every single one of these wretchedly misconceived devices costs well over £10,000 to install.
Wouldn't you like to get into a locked room for some vigorous and rigorous "discussion" the man who made the decision to install them in your area? You could try to find out whether he had a brain.
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Do you mean by using rule of thumb exploratory surgery, RJ, or just by asking how many fingers you are holding up?
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I do find it truly deepressing when I drive in Europe these days.
Their (mostly) smooth roads make a mockery of our (mostly) atrocious 'roads'.
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I wonder if these potholes and speed bumps are part of a master plan to actually get us into off road type vehicles. Where I live these bumps are appearing everywhere and they are not being properly installed the height seem wrong and a lot of them are breaking up and some are filling up with water as there is often no drains between one bump and the other. I tried this afternoon in my Accord (company car) to go over one at 30mph and I am surprised not to have left a dent on the inside of the roof. These are dangerous obstructions which should be removed on Health and Safety grounds.
Due to the state of our roads I will be going the off road vehicle route on my next replacement car out necessity not choice.
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