Potholes: AA advises drivers to avoid puddles to limit vehicle damage
The AA is advising drivers to "avoid puddles" after a record month for breakdowns caused by potholes.
"Continuous poor weather" and recent storms such as Babet, Ciaran and Debi have contributed to poor road surfaces.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged more than £8bn in funding last month to tackle what he called the "scourge of potholes".
I think most of us worked that out a long time ago. No doubt it's partly a consequence of anti-car policies, but drivers are keeping their cars for longer and presumably trying to take care of them by not bouncing through rain-filled potholes. I know we are.
5 comments:
When I go to the dentists and he has to replace a filling or crown he can run a small camera around the cavity and send the scan off to a milling machine in another room. In about 20 minutes he can fit the milled ceramic into the cavity and stick it in.
Why cannot we scale up this technology to deal with potholes? Produce a pothole shaped plug of resin reinforced surfacing material and stick it in? It *might* be more expensive to run but I expect it would save having to repeatedly revisit a fresh pothole in the same place.
Just a little suspicion of mine.
Who makes money out of repairing roads?
The same bunch as build the roads.
And the same bunch as repaired them the last time.
And the Gubment employees who have to decide when to repair a tank trap and suffer the the onerous task of deciding which contractor has the buggin's turn to block the highway this time.
And the publicly funded lawyers who have to fight the claims for damage.
So what incentive is there for building roads a wee bit better than how the Romans did it 2000 years ago?
The last innovation was pouring tar, a coal (oh, the horror) byproduct over the pebbles.
We have multi billions to spend trying to get some watts out of waves and wind but nothing to develop a road surface and substrate that lasts.
I suspect that chewing gum would last longer.
Look at the carbon, not to mention oxygen, that could be saved if roads and the vehicles on them lasted a little longer.
Whinge over.
DJ - there is a truck designed to fill potholes quickly and semi-automatically and I think one or two local authorities have them, but they seem slow to catch on. I haven't seen one round here.
Doonhamer - you are right though, in that sense potholes are like another tax on motorists. Everyone benefits except the motorist. There is an incentive to do road repairs inadequately.
As I understand it, the local authority are told of a pothole. They (eventually) send someone round to look at it. If it is a certain size or depth, a circle of, often red, paint is sprayed around the pothole. This is to show the tax payers that the LA are aware and doing something about it. The LA then ask for tenders to repair the pothole after the person with the spray paint declared how long it will take to repair it, or more if there is more than one. A firm submits a tender which is accepted. By this time, the hole is bigger than originally assessed. This means the repair company will have to spend longer, and possibly use more materials, than anticipated, without being paid for the extra time and material. The firm then has three options. One is to use the tendered materials and time, to competently fill in as many potholes as possible, even though this will leave some unrepaired. Another option is to fill in all of the potholes, using the original amount of tarmac, within the time limit,even though these 'repairs' will not last as long. The third is to do a proper job and, knowing the LA will not reimburse the extra cost, accept the loss of the cost of materials and wages. What to do, what to do? This was brought to you by a now defunct road repair company which took pride in it's work.
Penseivat
Penseivat - very interesting and all very much in the local authority mould. Driving around here it is possible to tell that many repairs are just a quick bodge.
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