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Top dressing is an acceptable form of road maintenance - the cost of resurfacing roads with extra/replacement layers of tarmac would be prohibitive - re-tarmacing is done on trunk roads because they actually need to go down and repair/strengthen the sub-layers.
There are guidelines/regulations (not sure which) governing new roads to cover the compensation from noise, including free domestic sound-proofing but I recall several claims for compensation following top dressing being thrown out of court.
Near where I live, we have one of the few remaining concrete stretches of motorway, most of them having been replaced - now concrete wears well and has good ice grip when new from the ridges but boy, is it noisy !!
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Had some sections of the local dual carriageway "re-surfaced" with top-dressing stones (daft thing is they properly resurfaced a 100m section only to do this whilst it was only 6mo!), now we have to contend with lots of road noise and flying stones (or going at 20mph for 5 miles for 2 weeks whilst it "beds in"!) which has already resulted in me having to replace my windscreen (chip+crack all on the same day!).
Still, not as bad as diving on concrete - awful road noise, made worse by my noisy Bridgestone ER30s! I always remembered that and the railway-track-like noise from the joins/crack in the concrete roads!
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Near where I live, we have one of the few remaining concrete stretches of motorway, most of them having been replaced - now concrete wears well and has good ice grip when new from the ridges but boy, is it noisy !!
They have a trial running on the A12 in Essex where they have cut grooves into the concrete running parallel with direction of traffic. The difference is amazing - you drive off the original concrete and onto the trial surface and the noise disappears. It must have been there for a couple of years now. When are they going to extend it?
The grey chips they spread onto the surface of roads are awful. It might be durable but it's noisy and rough. I reckon economy deteriorates due to extra drag on the tyres.
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AFAIK, the method is only cheaper in the short term. Doing the job properly does of course cost more, but last for years longer. But local authorities only have £x per year and would have to borrow to do the job fully.
As a cyclist, I hate roads done like this. Apart from flying stones, increased risk of punctures it makes a noticable difference to the effort required to ride a bike. Therefore must be costing motorists more in petrol and diesel although I've never observed this while driving..
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This has caused me to recall something I read somewhere about a requirement to resurface proper tarmac road surfaces after 25 years max but if you cover them with a 'temporary' road surface this can still be considered temporary after 30 years have passed......possibly this is from patheticmotorways.org.uk.
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Despite motorists giving the Treasury £50billion a year in direct taxation and generating most of the rest indirectly (probably, most money made or earned relied on wheels turning somewhere down the line) they still think sprinkling some gravel on a road is an acceptable form of resurfacing. Madness.
As for the EU banging on about tyre noise, I'm sorry but don't these morons have better things to worry about? I saw their recent press release explaining how road noise causes 150,000 deaths every year (apparently) and it's a good argument for leaving the pathetic union. In 1975 people voted to join the market, they didn't vote for Brussells bureaucrats bossing us around.
This pathetic form of road surfacing chips the paint on nice cars like mine and as a result I will send the invoice for a respray to a Mr G Osborne if it ever gets hurt.
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I naively thought that top dressing was a thing of the past, that is until a few weeks ago when I went out for the day to visit a National Trust place near Turner's Hill in Sussex.
Near there, I suddenly came across several miles of newly top dressed road and couldn't believe how unpleasant and dangerous they were to drive upon. In several instances flying stones just clipped my windscreen but fortunately did not cause any visible damage.
I can honestly say that I hadn't seen this treatment for so many years, that I thought that this technique had been abandoned, once and for all.
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I naively thought that top dressing was a thing of the past, that is until a few weeks ago when I went out for the day to visit a National Trust place near Turner's Hill in Sussex.
Near there, I suddenly came across several miles of newly top dressed road and couldn't believe how unpleasant and dangerous they were to drive upon. In several instances flying stones just clipped my windscreen but fortunately did not cause any visible damage.
I can honestly say that I hadn't seen this treatment for so many years, that I thought that this technique had been abandoned, once and for all.
There are 20mph temporary speed limits applied to recently top-dressed roads - the problem is caused by the 99.9% of drivers who ignore that speed limit.
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I naively thought that top dressing was a thing of the past, that is until a few weeks ago when I went out for the day to visit a National Trust place near Turner's Hill in Sussex.
Near there, I suddenly came across several miles of newly top dressed road and couldn't believe how unpleasant and dangerous they were to drive upon. In several instances flying stones just clipped my windscreen but fortunately did not cause any visible damage.
I can honestly say that I hadn't seen this treatment for so many years, that I thought that this technique had been abandoned, once and for all.
There are 20mph temporary speed limits applied to recently top-dressed roads - the problem is caused by the 99.9% of drivers who ignore that speed limit.
Well, I think that even a slower moving vehicle can throw up a destructive stone with some force if the angle and positioning is just right. I was certainly moving slowly but you can imagine the average driver's impatience when presented with this cheap jack maintenance mile after mile.
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Despite motorists giving the Treasury £50billion a year in direct taxation and generating most of the rest indirectly (probably, most money made or earned relied on wheels turning somewhere down the line) they still think sprinkling some gravel on a road is an acceptable form of resurfacing. Madness.
This pathetic form of road surfacing chips the paint on nice cars like mine and as a result I will send the invoice for a respray to a Mr G Osborne if it ever gets hurt.
Totally agree !
How can anyone say that sprinkling chips on wet tar is road maintenance is beyond me. No onbe else but jamie seems to see that using the publics expensive cars as road rollers is also unacceptable. Some years ago I was forced to drive about 5 miles on a road which had huge chips spread on it. At anything over 15 mph it was like flying a WW2 bomber over a particularly heavily defended target.
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How can anyone say that sprinkling chips on wet tar is road maintenance is beyond me. No onbe else but jamie seems to see that using the publics expensive cars as road rollers is also unacceptable.
Because this place isn't a genuine motoring forum, just like how organisations like the RAC, AA and IAM don't actually have the motorists interests at heart (at least not anymore).
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That's true-they don't. Everyone buys into the 'think of the children/polar bears' mantra.
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"Still, not as bad as diving on concrete - awful road noise, made worse by my noisy Bridgestone ER30s! I always remembered that and the railway-track-like noise from the joins/crack in the concrete roads!"
The new concrete German autobahns are superb the noise in the UK is because the contractors do not know how to lay them.
All government bodies in the UK have a "Duty of care" to all customers top dressing in my opinion does not fall into that catorgary.
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That's true-they don't. Everyone buys into the 'think of the children/polar bears' mantra.
The IAM is about two steps away from being re-classified a cycling organisation. The AA is merely now an insurance company and the RAC may as well not bother. They all link with the conmen at Brake and subscribe to the theory that motoring should be slowed down or abolished altogether.
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How do you resurface a road with a polar bear? Wouldn't it be better to use penguins? The wear on tyres and suspension would be a lot less.
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Two years ago Surrey Council relaid the road outside our house with proper tarmac. Lovely and smooth and little road noise.It did not need resurfacing.
Then in May we had a note shoved through the door informing us they were about to tar and chip. Noooo! It doesn't need it and will be a waste of my money I said. Ahead they went, spoiling a great surface, creating clouds of dust and during the hose ban to. So you can imagine our cars, windows and drive were covered in dust for weeks, chippings everywhere, and more road noise. After two weeks they eventually rolled out sweepers which didn't do a great job. Most of the chippings lay on the pavements, in driveways and lifted by imbedding in vehicles tyres.
God knows who took the decision to waste this money with a 3rd rate surface. I just wish they had consulted those that live on the road or use it first to see if it warranted the expense. If you ask them to do anything you think needs doing along these lines they are very quick to put you in your place that they know better, who are you to tell them what needs doing or they haven't the funds.
And from a council that put UP council tax this year when Cameron bangs on about him freezing council tax, and that they had to make savings in the County due to the austerity cuts. Makes your blood boil being feed this carp!
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There's a road I cycle down where the council have stripped out all the pavement slabs and replaced them with tarmac, only there was nothing wrong with the pavements and the tarmac doesn't reach the level of the kerbstones. It looks a mess and there's a primary school on the road, so it'll only take one kid to trip over a raised grid cover and it'll be litigation city! Waste of money.
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God knows who took the decision to waste this money with a 3rd rate surface. I just wish they had consulted those that live on the road or use it first to see if it warranted the expense.
Don't be silly. This is the council. They don't ask the public what they want. Oh hang on, aren't they supposed to be a public service? Mmm...
There are rather too many suited officials with their own little ideas that they'd like to see come to fruition to bother asking anyone who actually lives in these areas and uses the services what they think :)
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The treatment that you are referring to is called Surface Dressing, not top dressing. It's cheap and covers a number of defects in the carriageway and is very noisy. It's also used by most Local Authorities and will continue to be because it's an established technique and cost effective.
The concrete grooving trial in Essex was also used on the A14 at Ipswich with very good feedback from the travelling public. This treatment is used on new concrete carriagways from new in the good old USA,AFAIK. Depends on future Highways Agency budgets in the future whether more grooving schemes are carried out.
Hope that helps,
Regards...
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It's also used by most Local Authorities and will continue to be because it's an established technique and cost effective.
Define 'established technique' because to most councils, local authorities and the highways department, 'established technique' means 'its rubbish but people can't be bothered to complain so we'll continue to use it.'
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The treatment that you are referring to is called Surface Dressing, not top dressing.
You're right. Top dressing is for fine turf.
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Lots of 'surface-dressed' roads around here too (Aberdeenshire). They are rough and uncomfortable to cycle on and the loose chippings are a skid hazard, as well as chipping car paint. It's a cheap, nasty road surfacing method....
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In my suburb of Leeds they have recently done the main road through with the crappy chipping stuff. Yet they have done a local "crescent" in one of the estates (it's just a half moon shaped road that goes from the main road and comes back onto the main road 50 yards later) with the full treatment. Top off, nice smooth tarmac, the works. What's that all about for a road that maybe 50 people a day travel on?
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In my suburb of Leeds they have recently done the main road through with the crappy chipping stuff. Yet they have done a local "crescent" in one of the estates (it's just a half moon shaped road that goes from the main road and comes back onto the main road 50 yards later) with the full treatment. Top off, nice smooth tarmac, the works. What's that all about for a road that maybe 50 people a day travel on?
No doubt there's a councillor who lives - by coincidence - in the same road...
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