Potholes

Just been driving up in Manchester (Britain) to visit a friend and I was stunned at the parlous state of the roads there. According to the locals, it's entirely due to government cuts...huge potholes every where, all the cars veering dangerously to avoid them, mine included. And ultimately failing. God knows what damage my car has sustained. Not a whole lot better back in Kent either, I might add. All down to George 'the hatchet man' Osborne. Tory cuts biting big time.

I know we've got to reduce the national debt which is nearly £1.7 trillion...and growing at a rate of £5,170 a second! But it seems to me a) that the north is taking a whacking compared to the south, and b) we still have to provide a basic minimum 'pot' (pardon the pun) for road maintenance.

I just wonder how this affects emergency services. Potholes are really dangerous, they are a significant accident hazard, and yet you never hear them mentioned in the media.

My own view...quit starving public services, sod the debt...seems to me we've been tightening our belts for ever, with one excuse after another. So we take a bit longer to pay off the humungous sum, so what?

We still have to live.

a reply to: CJCrawley

CJCrawley,

The issue I have with these cuts is that they are simply not necessary, or rather, the wrong things have been cut. The millionaires who are running the top level of our civil service should not be paid well to do poorly at their work, and yet they are. The companies that supply our governments departments with office gear, paper products, pens, photocopiers, building maintenance and the like, are over charging by hundreds of percent and storing their ill gotten gains off shore. That needs to end. Now.

The sell off of our land, the involvement of Atos in our means testing for government assistance, all these things and more need to be nipped in the bud. We need to end privatisation, and force our government to employ its own staff, to provide its own supply chains, to prevent corporate interests from bleeding us dry, which they are. Most crucially, the government needs to stop penalising the people, for the actions and misdeeds of the financial elite, and the failures of previous governments.

It really puzzles me why it should be all that expensive just to fill in a hole.

If ever there was a case of 'a stitch in time' this must surely be it.

It's a pity that affected communities / motorists don't go out in the dead of night and fill the holes themselves.

How embarrassing for the local councils to have to try and investigate who did their job for them. And how expensive to unfill them

a reply to: CJCrawley


Ummm...funny you should mention pot holes...I've always wondered where all the...POT...went...

Every time I've had the misfortune to encounter one with the suspension of my vehicle...the damned things were empty...
Somebody must always get to them ahead of me......If they'd just left them full...I would definitely have had a much more enjoyable ride...






YouSir

there was a guy going round drawing dicks around the pot holes to make the council fix them. Maybe we should all go out and make them act. Sick of paying council tax for no reason....

a reply to: YouSir

Well, enjoyable... Maybe.

But if so, better make sure it's a ...

If only road tax went on, you know, fixing the roads?

a reply to: TrueBrit



Ummm...



YouSir

a reply to: YouSir

I only say that because if you are speeding, and you encounter either a standard hole in the floor, OR a "pothole", it could involve either the loss of your suspension, or the loss of your drivers licence, or worse, both!

a reply to: TrueBrit


Ummm...I've always wanted one of the ACME...variety...

But even a statement as Wiley as that...still only leaves me yearning for...what might/should have been...and probably would contribute to a slowing sedation rather than fast forward state...all while glancing nervously in the mirrors...

Possibly related to the particular mode of travel I might be using at the time...And the nature of the road traveled...




YouSir

All around Oxfordshire it's terrible and I'm on a motorbike so it's extra scary!!
Seriously... some of them are so deep it's ridiculous.
Why are they not fixing them? Some of them have a white line around them, so they intend to fix some...

As a guide potholes become reportable safety defects when they reach a depth of 40mm and are wide enough to impact a tyre. Some councils (like my local council) as a money saving measure have upped the intervention level depth to 60mm!!! On an A class road that is pretty dangerous.
Roads are inspected routinely, from my experience, monthly, three monthly or six monthly depending on the route, road class and whether it is a bus route.
Outwith routine inspections there are ad-hoc inspections resulting from members of the public reporting safety defects usually via the council website or contact centre. Once reported the inspector has 5 working days to investigate and when a pothole is deemed reportable it is issued as a job for operations. They then have 5 working days to repair the defect if it is a category B and 24hours if it is deemed a category A. Cones are usually left when the defect is very deep/large or hidden underwater.

A lot of the problems stem from drainage problems and ponding and not helped by bouts of frost and ever increasing amounts of larger and larger vehicles (lorries) and farm vehicles which a lot of roads, when originally built, did not have using them.

It certainly has been a battle over this winter with the huge amount of rain we have had and ever increasing cuts make larger area patching less available.

Potholes, in my area, cost around £37 each for one that is less than 1 Sqm. Hope this information has been helpful.