Pot holes

Round here it's tractors on the roads, they're huge things that barely fit on some of the smaller lanes, they crush the edges of the roads so everything starts crumbling.

There were big dangerous pot holes on my road which was filled during the heavy rain. Now they're reopened again.

Warmer months would have been sensible.

Around the corner from the house, there's a road to the quay which is full of pot holes and bit like a slalom course. Someone said that the road is going to be fixed in 2027.

Reporting pot holes have to be a certain depth and width. 

The trick is to move the steering wheel only when the road wheels are moving to avoid straining both arms and vehicle. I know where the worst holes are but even so, hard to avoid them when trying to avoid other vehicles who are also trying to miss the pot holes. Yes, Vera drive a nice 90 but mine is a 1976 88. 

TheCatWoman said:

redesign road tax so as heavier vehicles pay more?

I like this idea. And SUV's ought to pay more. So too, the army  for vehicles brought onto public roads. This would eventually come out in higher taxes for us, but at least be better distributed. Trundling heavy vehicles like theirs creates far more damage to roads than domestic cars. 

I did suggest to DoE that the Royal Engineers Corps might be deployed to repair roads, because they would do it properly, army style. Didn't get a response so I might try again.

I wonder if we don't need to redesign road tax so as heavier vehicles pay more? Cars are heavier and larger than they were years ago, mostly because of all the safety features, something I would not want to get rid of, but do we really need such massive cars? Electric cars are some of the heaviest, especially teslas and this has an effect on road surfaces. So many people have huge cars, and trucks and don't need them, they're not pulling horse boxes or trailers full of stuff needed for thier jobs. We seem to have traded fuel efficiency for road wear.

The roads seemed to doing ok till January. But a number of large and deep holes have appeared.

The roads are used as a cash cow to raise money for other things. If there were a closed budget we would have beautiful roads. We spend a quarter of what is raised, depending on what you count. 

Fuel duty has been falling for a while, due to freezing rates, to more efficient cars, fewer miles driven and electrics vehicles, but still generates c. £25bn a year.

Tax discs (VED) raises another £8bn a year and this is rising  Then you have VAT  20% on all those hundreds of thousands of non-business sales each year. Plus all the servicing, tyres, crash repairs etc. which contribute, and insurance tax (the least defensible tax ever).

And £12bn I put back into road repairs and building new roads. But the building bit consumes money. One junction on the M25 has taken 3.5 years. One roundabout took 2 years near me. And putting in emergency telephones and variable speed limits, more than a decades on a handful of motorways sections. The costs were huge and not entirely fair. Not much is left for repairs.

Everything above the £12bn, probably three times that amount, goes on subsidising rail (HS2, the most expensive railway on the world by a big margin at £570m per mile to build, schools hospitals, etc. It means you can claim any change to anything means closing schools and hospitals. It is a manipulative tactic to prevent change.

So you get a quick bit of stuff slapped in the hole. It is known to be a false economy. But just put it off gas been the way for 40 years, it won't change now 

I doubt they will do much before April as the councils will be waiting for next year's budget.

Even when they do get filled in, they tend to leave others nearby, if not reported.

Last year there was a report on the Breakfast Show about a vehicle which had been trialled somewhere to fix potholes in a way which I believe was more reliable and did the whole job. I guess it might be too expensive for most places, especially as a lot of places this is outsourced, so the company is looking to spend as little as possible.

TheCatWoman said:

I don't think filling them in is enough anymore, I think whole sections of roads need entirely relaying, so many roads have so many small repairs which have failed leaving massive ruts and gouges.

Exactly. They leave a hillock around the edge which gets chipped, water gets in and bingo, back to square one. There must be better, scientifically tested for longevity, versions of tarmac, with all the modern glues. Surely some University ought to be doing research on this?

You're not wrong there Cat. Round my way I think its down to how long they can shut the roads for, before the local community crusaders come out. They seem to fill them but reopen the road so quickly the temporary fix isn't even temporary. Unless its the cheaper material they use to fill the dam things in with?! I'm the idiot that hit a pot hole and then a couple of days later forgot and blew out the brand new tyre I had replaced. LucyLandRover classic Land Rovers are amazing. I love the blue one Vera has on her ITV programme. No power steering driving straight ish, is hard let alone having to avoid holes in the road most of your journeys. 

Even driving a classic Land Rover on our poor roads is a chore. I know where most of the pot holes are due to driving, cycling and walking the local roads but even so, I have hit one before in the fog. I had to change the shock absorber bushes due to the pounding they have taken. My arms ache after a while due to having to keep hauling the wheel over to avoid the holes, no power steering just muscle power. I have seen where they only fill in part of a large hole which is pointless as the water floods in then freezes so the repair patch soon lifts and cracks.