UK Road Quality

Conscript said:
I work in the office. I can't speak for the quality of work the term maintenance division carries out as they are involved all over London. However, I know that the projects our civils department have completed have always been held in high regard by London boroughs and have been praised for their excellence, and the quality of our tender submissions will very often outshine those of our competitors.
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Ah, held in regard by councils, not the people who have to suffer the delays and apparent, here at least, poor workmanship that the workers actually do.
 
Conscript said:
I work in the office. I can't speak for the quality of work the term maintenance division carries out as they are involved all over London. However, I know that the projects our civils department have completed have always been held in high regard by London boroughs and have been praised for their excellence, and the quality of our tender submissions will very often outshine those of our competitors. Im not keen to take up your complaints as such, I just responded as I felt your attack on the company as a whole was a little unfair.
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I don't think it was unfair at all, as far as I'm concerned I was stating the truth.

Conscript said:
Let's be honest, the roundabout you are describing is small and of terrible design. I don't think I've ever been round it and not been cut up or forced off my line in some way by another driver, not so much maliciously as by the simple bad layout of the road. Being abused isnt something we'd condone but then I cant speak without knowing the full details of the situation.
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It's pretty simple really - left hand side for left or straight on, right hand side for everything else. Being local, the conway driver doubtless knew this as well as I did - the reason he cut me up and called me a **** is because I'd let some people cross the road, a few hundred metres before, which added at least 4 seconds to his journey time and his tiny brain was now hell-bent on finding a way past me.

Conscript said:
Again, I cant speak for the attitude of road crews because I don't go out on site and dont know them all personally. However, I would suggest that such behaviour is not unique to our workforce - the fact that you live close to our centre of operations means that the majority of constuction traffic will be ours, so of course you think it's just us that have truck drivers with poor discipline. Im willing to wager that you also drive past a high percentage of our trucks everyday being driven very well, but you wouldn't say that because you only remember the incidents where you have a complaint.

For example, I live in Gravesend where Ringway are currently engaged in a project to resurface and rebuild a large portion of the civic square and one way system. Every morning for the past few months Ive have to put up with their construction traffic and a lot of their drivers are also inconsiderate tossers, who pull out without looking, or seem to forget that their current site is a live road. That doesnt mean every Ringway worker is a ******, I probably go past a much higher proportion of their workforce with no problem and dont even notice.
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That's the thing - there's a lot of construction companies based close to where I live and whilst I'd agree that none of them have fantastic drivers, Conway are by far the worst to the extent where they've turned into something of a joke amongst the residents of my road.
Conscript said:
Again, I cant speak for the quality of every road repair we do - I am just reporting that from what I hear, in general, the work our surfacing crews have done has been very good. Of course, there will be instances where our work is not up to scratch. That isnt a problem peculiar to just us. Remeber, that our term maintenance contract basically means we go out and patch potholes - this is never an ideal solution, the best method is to resurface the area in question. But the council wont just let us go out and close roads to do a proper job - they want the potholes filled as quickly and cheaply as possible. So patching is the only option, and other contractors who patch repairs in a similar way will have the same problem. That's a problem with the approach to road repair in general, not just our company.
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I'm aware that it's rarely possible to do a brilliant job, but most of the work I've seen is just plain crap. There's a difference between filling a hole with tarmac, flattening it, and driving off and chucking a load of tar in the hole so it's uneven and splashes everywhere, get out of there as quick as possible and leave it for the cars to flatten down.
Conscript said:
Please do! Like most companies, reputation is important - if you have a problem with the attitude of a driver, or the quality of work, try ringing central services and lodging a complaint. Im sure it would be upheld if it is resonable and justified.
I didn't intend to deal with your complaint directly, I just wanted to let you know that the experiences you describe are not as widespread as you seem to think and that uncouth behaviour from truck drivers is not something unique to Conway.
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I also agree that it isn't unique to conway, but it is more common amongst conway workers than other firms. Like I said, the next time I have a problem with them I'll put in a complaint and see where it gets me.
 
Agree with uk has some of the best roads, but Australia has some of best quality road surfaces I have seem.

Take where I am now Taiwan the roads and road surfaces are horrendous!
 
Roads around where I live are either good, or horrendous. usually bus lanes on the main roads/country roads are completely undrivable on without doing some damage to your vehicle. =/
 
What I hate the most about our roads is that I know for a fact when a good stretch of road is re-surfaced that in about 1-2 months time it will be dug up again for some sort of cable or pipe. Then they patch it back up and you get that lovely long snaking line which just happens to be bang on where your wheels go. If only the various parties communicated better, as in, "hey we're re-doing this stretch of road do you want to do anything whilst it's all up?". :(
 
Duke said:
All down to money.
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not really. Around here they replace kurbs, crashbarriers and loads of other things that don't need replacing, and of course they also stick loads of speed bumps and traffic calming measures up too.... rather than fixing the dam roads.

if they spent the money they waste on stupid alterations, we would have nice roads.
 
Morba said:
Ah, held in regard by councils, not the people who have to suffer the delays and apparent, here at least, poor workmanship that the workers actually do.
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I was talking about larger civils project that come out to tender. Councils tend to be some of the most rigorous of our clients, with the highest standards required for their projects, as many of them are public realm.

You don't think it's just some local councillor who comes down, glances at the work and gives it a thumbs up do you? There is a huge amount of quality control on projects, and the tender process will be administered by a consultant team of engineers and architects, whom we have to satisfy in order to win a contract, and answer to whilst the work is being carried out.

And the councils opinion of our work will be a reflection of the people in that borough - if the council gets any complaints about poor workmanship on a tender, it will come straight back to us. Most contracts will also have a defects correction period, meaning we are liable for problems with out construction for a period after the works are complete.

Woodpigeon - the point Im trying to get across is that whilst you have obviously witnessed the results of a poor term maintenance crew working in your area, it's not representative of the rest of the business and work we do. I was chatting to my uncle who lives in Crayford once and he was astounded by the speed and neatness of the work we carried out on his road, and that was the same type of crew - he was even happily obliged when he asked one of our roller drivers to give his recently surfaced drive a quick going over.
 
Overlag said:
not really. Around here they replace kurbs, crashbarriers and loads of other things that don't need replacing, and of course they also stick loads of speed bumps and traffic calming measures up too.... rather than fixing the dam roads.

if they spent the money they waste on stupid alterations, we would have nice roads.
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VRS systems are there for a reason it's a pretty narrow minded view you've got there.
 
Overlag said:
not really. Around here they replace kurbs, crashbarriers and loads of other things that don't need replacing, and of course they also stick loads of speed bumps and traffic calming measures up too.... rather than fixing the dam roads.

if they spent the money they waste on stupid alterations, we would have nice roads.
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Ok, let me put a bit more detail in.

Its down to mismanagement of money :)
 
I just don't understand how we can have some really nice sections of very smooth, and very quiet black top, then 2 minutes down the road it feels as though is was put together for 50p.
 
Surely there is a massive gap between the amount of money taken from motorists (Fuel duty, taxes etc.) and the amount actually spent on the roads. It's horrendous.
 
Morba said:
But that means nothing, as I'm not going to spend equal time driving on all those countries roads. I drive in the UK, I do not like the standard of the roads currently compared to what they have been before.
.
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The majority of roads are better than they used to be. If the fashion wasn't for low profile rubber and stiff suspension then far fewer people would have problems with them.
 
What's ****ing me off at the moment is the council here are spending god knows how much money on putting speed-bumps in on main roads whilst the other end has car-sized potholes. Makes me rage that does.
 
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