Countries with Best Roads, Infrastructure
- Thread starter 4K8KW10
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Yes. How did you guess? Have you been in this exact place?
Nope, did think about it one year for a change... maybe I'll try it in future, have some friends that haven't been skiing/snowboarding before and the resorts there are supposed to be quite beginner friendly and cheap!
To be fair it was a 50/50 guess - it was either Romania or Bulgaria given your description.
Soldato
My experience...
France and Italy: city roads less well maintained than in the UK, toll roads always immaculate.
US: Massively varies depending on area - I've seen major highways with massive potholes, and others just as good as the French toll roads.
Mexico: Worse than you can possibly imagine. Potholes 1ft deep, sunken manhole covers on 100kph highways, speed bumps easily 2-3 times the size of UK ones with no warnings, even on highways. Objects such as entire truck tyres discarded in the middle of unlit roads (hit one at night a while back, was lucky not to do any damage). No compensation culture here, so pavements often have vast, gaping holes which you could easily fall into at night. I keep meaning to video some of my drives, think it would be an eye opener for some of you.
France and Italy: city roads less well maintained than in the UK, toll roads always immaculate.
US: Massively varies depending on area - I've seen major highways with massive potholes, and others just as good as the French toll roads.
Mexico: Worse than you can possibly imagine. Potholes 1ft deep, sunken manhole covers on 100kph highways, speed bumps easily 2-3 times the size of UK ones with no warnings, even on highways. Objects such as entire truck tyres discarded in the middle of unlit roads (hit one at night a while back, was lucky not to do any damage). No compensation culture here, so pavements often have vast, gaping holes which you could easily fall into at night. I keep meaning to video some of my drives, think it would be an eye opener for some of you.
Mexico and the U.S. have so vast territories that I guess it is kind of normal that potholes appear and don't get repaired anytime soon.
Well, I have seen in the Baltic countries (heritage from the USSR), roads not covered with the last layer of asphalt, only very hard pressed soil, the roads are wide and very smooth without any potholes, too.
The only thing is that multiple tiny pebbles hit the mudguards and the tyres all the time.
Well, I have seen in the Baltic countries (heritage from the USSR), roads not covered with the last layer of asphalt, only very hard pressed soil, the roads are wide and very smooth without any potholes, too.
The only thing is that multiple tiny pebbles hit the mudguards and the tyres all the time.
When getting fixed they take 5 ******* days to fix 1 pothole
Then the filling for the pothole comes out after 2 weeks and they never refix it for another 2 years
When they don't fill them people moan anyway but they never fix them now because the above happens
I think the UK must have some of the worst roads in the entire solar system. I was watching a road patching team in our area the other week and didn't know whether to laugh or cry, I wish now I had taken a video to upload to YouTube. This team put a couple of cones around the pothole, proceeded to use a stiff brush to clear away the debris then opened a bag of 'cold asphalt' emptied it into the pothole and used a tamper to firm it in. That was it, job done, onto next hole. Within 4 days the pothole was reforming - what a waste of time, effort and money.
Associate
- Joined
- 19 Dec 2016
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- 244
Not sure about the rest of UK, in london there are road works everywhere.. and if the public knows its to fix roads, no one will moan.
Associate
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- 19 Dec 2016
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- 244
shouldn't road tax go on road?
Caporegime
There are 3 potholes right outside my house, in fact the potholes here are so bad you can’t really drive straight if you care about your rims and tyres at all. Driving around here is a game of dodge’ems.
Soldato
I reckon 20 years time the road network will be in private ownership. Tax scrapped for pay as you use.
This is, definitely, not the way how it must be done.
Here, at least, they do it better (when they do it, of course). They cut the asphalt with some saw in square or rectangular shapes, then fill the proper shaped holes with new asphalt, and then use some type of glue on all edges, so water never gets again in between. The patches last for a considerable amount of time.
Road taxes must go for repair. But... I guess they redirect money from all regions to the nation-wide projects, so the local problem never gets fixed.
The politicians are then moaning that the money from the road taxes is never enough......
God, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing
Caporegime
- Joined
- 9 Apr 2012
- Posts
- 13,157
The UK is varied. Main roads managed by the Highways Agency are generally quite good as their funding comes directly from central government.
Local council roads are in general awful due to a lack of forward planning and instead reliance on patching. It can however be good, a part of the A31 has been recently resurfaced near Guildford and is the best surface I’ve ever driven on in the UK. I believe that road is council maintained although I might be wrong.
The issue in terms of infrastructure is short terminism and too much government involvement. What we need is a separate roads commission that is in charge of road maintenance, building, etc. with its funding protected. Like in Germany for example. But you won’t get that with the current lot.
Local council roads are in general awful due to a lack of forward planning and instead reliance on patching. It can however be good, a part of the A31 has been recently resurfaced near Guildford and is the best surface I’ve ever driven on in the UK. I believe that road is council maintained although I might be wrong.
The issue in terms of infrastructure is short terminism and too much government involvement. What we need is a separate roads commission that is in charge of road maintenance, building, etc. with its funding protected. Like in Germany for example. But you won’t get that with the current lot.
Soldato
Over here they get 33million per year out car fuel tax and very little of it goes back into improving the roads....
33million may not sound much to you england guys but for an island that only about 7 miles long and only 20miles to drive all the way around I think it a lot.
That was about 4 years ago http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-guernsey-26670527
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Honestly, our roads aren't too bad. They're not great, but when you think about spending a finite pool of resources, should you spend loads on roads to get them from "okay" to amazing when that money could be used on something like health care or other important services to bring them from "poor" to "okay"? Certain areas really are bad, but it's not terrible. As another poster mentioned, I'm more concerned with people's ability to use them. Lane discipline in this country is atrocious
