What are the roads like round your way?

[diy_fun_uk]

We're seeing a lot of media reports just now about poor road conditions, potholes, uneven surfaces and so on. Often when you see such reports you think 'roads are fine round my way' however I have to admit in my area (county of Fife) including my home town, I'm not sure I've ever seen the roads as bad. Obviously there are lots of parts that are fine, however there's also an increasing quantity of potholes, some of them pretty big, that are sitting there week in week out without being repaired. One has appeared in our town centre on a roundabout, slap bang where you would naturally drive round, so you have to navigate carefully around or over it. Nothing has been done to repair it.

I mentioned in another thread, so poor is the surface of a stretch of road near the town centre, they have put an 'uneven surface' warning sign on the pavement! Then, to cap it all, feck knows what they use for their temp repairs but often they'd be as well not bothering. A few days later the pothole is usually as bad as ever. What concerns me is we have some dual carriageway stretches that are national limit. Obviously you don't have to drive that fast, however you find yourself doing ~40mph along them as you literally need to watch for potholes and try to avoid them.

So, where are you in the country and in general, what are the roads like round your way?

 

[Deleted member 18243]

Very poor, never seen the like before. Not surprised, road mending is expensive and we have no money except for funny money. We are in the fruition stage of communism - nothing works and everything is faked.

 

[ReganAndCarter]

In Bristol the council seems to have plenty of money to splash on certain parts of roads with fancy bumps and speed reducing chicanes, red road surface for bus lanes, endless cameras to catch Molehusbands wandering into bus lanes and the new cash-generator Ulezzer scheme. Our wonderful ethnic son of diversity Mayor Marvin has seen fit to allow a spree on some fancy pelican crossings that have rainbow stripes instead of normal B&W. We got to demonstrate our diversiddy, innit!

As for actually repairing potholes - that's so last year. There are potholes everywhere, some big, quite a lot massive. Roads also seem to be subsiding and you can also see the tarmac crazing and cracking in large sections. The backlog isn't being tackled, and it's getting to the stage where the roads are very dangerous - especially to cyclists and motorcyclists. The damage is so widespread I doubt they can ever catch up with repairs and return the roads to the reasonable state they were 20 or 30 years ago.

I seem to spend a large part of driving around town avoiding some quite sizeable holes to avoid damaging my vehicle. The other day I thought back to when I first hit the roads with anything motorised (1983 motorcycle/1986 car). I can honestly say that for the first 25 or so years of my driving career I don't recall driving around constantly dodging potholes.

We have to remember a couple of things: The UK can no longer afford itself, and we're slowly but surely dropping from first world to second world status.

Isn't she pretty?

WTF.jpg

• ReganAndCarter
• 26 Mar 2023

 

[Mottie]

Even the pot holes have pot holes round our way.

 

[gas112]

how many of the roads are still done in house or out to contracts .
Ours are reasonably good time wise at getting out but the standard of repair on some of them is absolutely atrocious heaven forbid digging just six inches further to take in the start of the next pot hole . Same as see loads of area`s about 20 feet by 5 with at least ten repairs in the area . lift the lot and get it done properly got to be cheaper.
And with todays gps tech accurate to about a foot make every repair be registered and if it comes back its fixed free of charge .
And use hot tar to seal them

 

[Bod ...]

how many of the roads are still done in house or out to contracts .
Ours are reasonably good time wise at getting out but the standard of repair on some of them is absolutely atrocious heaven forbid digging just six inches further to take in the start of the next pot hole . Same as see loads of area`s about 20 feet by 5 with at least ten repairs in the area . lift the lot and get it done properly got to be cheaper.
And with todays gps tech accurate to about a foot make every repair be registered and if it comes back its fixed free of charge .
And use hot tar to seal them

Totally agree and what I've been saying.
Every hole needs a Guarantee

 

[conny]

Same in East Anglia. The drive into town/work is like trying to drive on an African bush track. They are not holes, they are huge POTHOLES! I swear that one day a little man with a cavers helmet on is going to pop up to check his bearings!
The council knows where the holes are, they go around spraying bright paint around them! Apparently, it has been suggested they do this so you can't claim for damage to your car if you hit them. As mentioned earlier, we too have a couple of stretches at national limit, (60mph), which are single lane in each direction. But most vehicles now only manage to do about 40-45mph in case they have to swerve suddenly. You can tell if someone is from out of the area as they either, drive very slowly in the hope it's going to get better, or drive like maniacs not realising until it's too late. When they do get 'repaired', the surface looks like a teenagers acne-ridden face with black spots dotted everywhere.

 

[diy_fun_uk]

Maybe it's all part of a stealth strategy to slow us down, stop repairing the roads. As some of you have touched on, I don't think I've seen the roads this bad in my 30+ years of driving. Sometimes for a variety of reasons, you simply can't miss the potholes. Good job you're not in the car with me when this happens, to say I turn the air blue is an understatement

 

[bernardgreen]

The A6 in Bedford is considered as being suitable to be a golf course.

 

[ReganAndCarter]

Maybe it's all part of a stealth strategy to slow us down, stop repairing the roads.

That had crossed my mind.

Same with reducing 30 mph town limits to 20 mph. If the limit is 30, then many will chance their arm by driving at 35 or 40. So if you want drivers to stick to 30 mph limit, lower the limit to 20 - then most will hover around 30 or below.

 

[Bod ...]

I've been on better roads in Sri Lanka & India than what is the Average road here.

 

[motorbiking]

Huge pot holes around my way. We have several on the main road near me that are a good 5-8” deep. I know councils are strapped with social care costs. But I’d rather they fixed the pot holes than installed humps, and pinch points. There always seems to be money to install fences blocking the approach to roundabouts but filling the holes seems to get ignored.

 

[Brigadier]

This is perhaps the worst road I know to, other than those in the sticks.

Beacon Road, near Handsworth Rugby Club. Look it up on streetview.

Not a deprived patch of Walsall either, which leads me to believe that the residents actively work to ensure its kept that way, to reduce it's rat-run desirability.

 

[securespark]

Every hole needs a Guarantee

 

[Justin Passing]

This is perhaps the worst road I know to, other than those in the sticks.

Beacon Road, near Handsworth Rugby Club. Look it up on streetview.

Not a deprived patch of Walsall either, which leads me to believe that the residents actively work to ensure its kept that way, to reduce it's rat-run desirability.

That's a private road, p3 here I googled private roads Walsall. There was a FOI request.

It appears that Streetview doesn't do private roads. I checked a rough one near me, same thing, there's a gap.