what the hell is going on with our roads.

Rroff said:
One of the ones I find weird is the amount of identical size/shape sink holes which seem to be forming, they are almost all in positions which would be taking the max beating from vehicles, especially heavy vehicles though i.e. the right hand side of the lane on a sharp right hand turn.
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I actually prefer the sink holes, they seem to be the only thing getting repaired once they make the road unsafe, we've got one forming near us by a railway crossing, currently it just has a sign saying "Ramp ahead", that's literally the best our council can currently do :cry:
 
Loads of potholes in my road, all marked by a surveyor for the council a few weeks ago, but so far only a few have been fixed. Not sure if the contractor was told they had 1.5 days to do a 3 day job or why they only did some of them. 15mph tootle to get to the bottom of the road.

M6 and local A roads mostly OK. Did see a run of them on the Carlisle bypass though, including 2 right next to each other in way you had to hit one of them.
 
Do you remember the days when you used to get proper roadworks, where entire roads were being properly relayed? These days I see a shed load of "roadworks" but they are just tiny sections of traffic cones for utilities being dug up for 100th time or the odd pothole repair that lasts a month or two at best.
We had two massive potholes near us which got reported very quickly by locals and repeatedly chased up with council - so my local fb group tells me - and after about 3 months they came out and filled them. I mean it's like a child did the work. Tarmac just poured in but it just looks so soft. They've lasted a couple of weeks now and already have been compressed down back into the original hole and it's starting to break apart.

The contractors must love it. Seemingly infinite money for old rope. Easy work. Maybe I should do it as a side hustle.
 
I have gotten used to pot-holes around town and side streets etc. Not so bad at low speed where you can actually make an attempt to avoid.

What I find ridiculous are the craters and trenches open on the A1 for months. It's just outright dangerous.
 
the council where i am has spent must be in the many 1000s possibly millions reducing road widths to almost the point of being dangerous for drivers for more + bigger cycling lanes and increased pedestrian foot path sizes for all the 3 cyclists and 2 people walking i see day to day.
 
I have noticed a lot of square pothole lately - about a foot square.

I have lived here for 13 yrs and road down from under the bypass to X roads has been awfull -sort of 10mph and look at road in front of you - Well lo and behold last month they closed the road and replaced the whole surface from X road up the hill round bend the stopped 5ft away from one of those BT green boxes which has it's own pot hole about foot and half square and 3-4" deep.
Why on earth they didn't just put a few shovel fulls of tarmac in it I don't know.
 
We've just had numerous parts of every road in our village dug up to flush water pipes (looks like they've replaced them all to me) so every road is a mess of patchwork and filled pipe trenches. I'm sure it'll all be full of holes by winter. I don't know what they use to patch potholes at the moment but around our way the patches crumble within days and the pot holes are back after a few months.
 
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I can always remember the road workers having a watering can full of hot tar and that was run around outer edge of pothole so new tarmac had a grip and stopped it wearing away - Never see hot tarmac now -probably H&S banned it as dangerous. - The only thing that worked.
 
jaybee said:
Do you remember the days when you used to get proper roadworks, where entire roads were being properly relayed? These days I see a shed load of "roadworks" but they are just tiny sections of traffic cones for utilities being dug up for 100th time or the odd pothole repair that lasts a month or two at best.
We had two massive potholes near us which got reported very quickly by locals and repeatedly chased up with council - so my local fb group tells me - and after about 3 months they came out and filled them. I mean it's like a child did the work. Tarmac just poured in but it just looks so soft. They've lasted a couple of weeks now and already have been compressed down back into the original hole and it's starting to break apart.

The contractors must love it. Seemingly infinite money for old rope. Easy work. Maybe I should do it as a side hustle.
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100% this... it's disgraceful... we basically put a plaster over everything and they last 2-3 months and knackered again. Around the Flint area now is disgraceful!
 
Not too sure if this a problem in your area. In Leicestershire, when road signs get damaged, usually by idiots driving at stupid speeds, the signs never get replaced.

On the junction of my road, there are double yellow lines which are faded - can see the outlines of them and yet get idiots parking right on the junction. Complained to the council and they said it would be fixed within 2 months, 5 months ago.
 
DXP55 said:
I can always remember the road workers having a watering can full of hot tar and that was run around outer edge of pothole so new tarmac had a grip and stopped it wearing away - Never see hot tarmac now -probably H&S banned it as dangerous. - The only thing that worked.
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depot next door to us still makes and supplies it. You see people come in to collect it. Obviously the councils dont as its cheaper not to.
 
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jaybee said:
Do you remember the days when you used to get proper roadworks, where entire roads were being properly relayed? These days I see a shed load of "roadworks" but they are just tiny sections of traffic cones for utilities being dug up for 100th time or the odd pothole repair that lasts a month or two at best.
We had two massive potholes near us which got reported very quickly by locals and repeatedly chased up with council - so my local fb group tells me - and after about 3 months they came out and filled them. I mean it's like a child did the work. Tarmac just poured in but it just looks so soft. They've lasted a couple of weeks now and already have been compressed down back into the original hole and it's starting to break apart.

The contractors must love it. Seemingly infinite money for old rope. Easy work. Maybe I should do it as a side hustle.
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Honestly its just a race to the bottom. A lot of council maintenance work is subcontracted. One year we were short of work so decided to do the local councils pot hole maintenance contract for the year. From memory, and it wasnt that many years ago, we got £27 per pothole. You cant afford to spend much on materials or much time when you only get that little. in fact the entire contract lost money for us for the year but at least kept some men occupied who we would have had to let go that year.
 
randal said:
I'm starting to think our local councils might be a bit skint.
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About 5-6 years ago, about this time of year, I was driving down a B road with overgrown verges covering the kerbs. An ambulance with flashing blue lights was coming up behind me. Pulled over to let the ambulance through. BANG! I hit my wheel on a broken kerbstone which was hidden underneath the overgrowth. Burst tyre and cracked alloy. Fortunately my car then had a space saving tyre which the guy in the car behind me changed for me as I was in shock. £115 worse off. If I saw the kerb, I would have just pulled over a metre ahead.

Took photos of the state of the kerb and my wheel to the council. Didn't get a reply.
 
Councils should understand prevention is cheaper than cure. Hardly seen a drain clearing van. They need to be cleaned out as full of rubbish, leaves, sediment etc. Clearing out the drains is cheaper than repairing a flood damaged road. Plus, depending on location of road, the cost of temporary signs, temporary traffic lights etc.

Then the councils or contractors don't bother to pick up the road signs up afterwards. As a litter womble, my group have found countless of temporary road signs in ditches etc. Most of them are universal and can be used in other roadworks - road closed, diversion (with a movable arrow), roadworks etc. Due to the length of time they are in the ditch etc they are beyond use plus got damaged by a lorry driving over it.

More of our money wasted. Cost of sign and a frame is £60-£100, depending on size etc.
 
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