Highways agency are morons

PiKe

PiKe

PiKe

Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Location
Lake District
This morning I took my usual route to work which included a stretch of a dual carriageway. During the night they had resurfaced but there were thousands upon thousands of 3mm stones all over the service, a speed limit of 40mph was imposed and an advisory of 10mph due to a skid risk.

Obviously you can't stop cars overtaking in this situation and due to this, the front and wings of my car is are now covered in tiny stone chips.

If highways were doing their job properly, they should have used a road sweeper to take most of these loose stones up. Is anyone liable or do I just have to grin and bear it?
 
They kinda rely on the cars driving and warmer days to press the stones into the tar layer underneath....

Blame the morons overtaking you or yourself for going too slow :p
 
It's a cheap and cheerful way of resurfacing a road by using the cars to bed it in, and it makes my blood boil.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
They kinda rely on the cars driving and warmer days to press the stones into the tar layer underneath....

Blame the morons overtaking you or yourself for going too slow :p
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That gives me the choice of having my front end pummelled or my doors from my own tyres...
 
There should have been a "loose chippings" sign up with plenty of warning. So that anyone who doesn't want to go across them can turn around and find another route.
 
NathanE said:
There should have been a "loose chippings" sign up with plenty of warning. So that anyone who doesn't want to go across them can turn around and find another route.
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Nope, there was no sign until you came off the roundabout.
 
I don't know what the law is but surely if there are loose chippings down then it's standard H&S to put a sign up. It's very important for motorcyclists...
 
If you managed to get the plate numbers of the morons who overtook you you may have a shot at claiming from them due to damage caused by their careless/dangerous driving. But might be difficult to prove intent.
 
ubersonic said:
If you managed to get the plate numbers of the morons who overtook you you may have a shot at claiming from them due to damage caused by their careless/dangerous driving. But might be difficult to prove intent.
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I'd expect picking six numbers for this weeks lottery would yield better results ;)
 
It's hardly fair though is it? If there was debris from anyone else on this road, then they would be held liable.
 
They do this a lot on the rural roads around here. I've just had a windscreen replaced due to a chip caused by a stone thrown up by roadworks on a side road. Have the forms to make an official claim against Kent Highways for compensation but I doubt it will go far.
 
I claimed for a new windscreen from the highways department at lincolnshire county council after the windscreen in my granada was smashed by stones thrown up by passing cars on a resurfaced road many years ago, they paid out the invoice cost in full.
Find the authority responsible for the stretch of road, send a claim in, they can only say no.
 
Noticed they've been doing this with the roads round here for a while.

They rip the surface up, do whatever then just bung a load of loose stones down.

Always think that must be some sort of temp surface but nope that's it!
 
Hate it when they do this type of resurfacing, a few rounds down here have been done, so its then finding alterative routes around them. I know its a cheap way of getting the work done, but after about 3 weeks there always seems to be patches of the old tarmac coming through as the new top layer has worn away, then you wonder why it was done in the first place.
 
PiKe said:
You can't just send a letter of complaint to the county highways agency then?
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You are in a different situation, I couldnt drive the granada without a windscreen so had to get it done and sent the invoice with a letter of complaint to the local office.

You dont have an invoice as you havent had any work done yet, and I doubt they would offer anything on the guestimated cost of repairs.

At the very least you will have to send a quote to repair in with any letter if you actually want anything from them i would have thought.
 
They have been doing this all my driving life 40+ years and probably well before then.

You could live in Africa or America and drive down dirt roads all your life.
 
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