Vocal Voices

The RAC, and others, are saying that this winter has been the perfect recipe for creating potholes. They point out the cycle of rain, freezing temperatures, rain, freeing temperatures is creating the break up of road surfaces. Water gets in a crack and when it freezes it expands which weakens the surrounding structure, and so it goes on. A small hole can become a crater in days and these craters are so big they cause damage to wheels and suspensions; they are also life-threatening to those on two wheels.

So what is the response? The Department for Transport said: "We are investing more than £5bn from 2020 to 2025 into local highways maintenance - including the potholes fund announced at the 2020 Budget.

The aim is to fill millions of potholes a year..."

And therein lies the problem. Filling in millions of potholes is not the same as meaningfully repairing them. What most of us get are bodge jobs. A few blokes turn up with a pile of tarred stone chips, throw them in the holes, stamp them down a bit and drive off. The hole is filled, but it is not repaired.

I remember the days when a team would turn up; the loose grit would be swept out, and an industrial blow torch would then soften and dry the hole, it would then be lined with tar and the new grit placed inside. Tamping poles would then be used to bind it all together and a vibrating plate would smooth it to the level of the old road surface. The edge would then be seamed to stop water getting in. Those proper repairs lasted years compared with the few months. or even weeks, of the current methods.

It might have been more expensive as a one-off, but obviously much cheaper over time.

Tom hit one the other night and wrecked a tyre.
He had a mobile tyre fitter come out yesterday morning to replace it. At 9.30am Tom’s was the second pothole damaged tyre he’d replaced that morning.

They tried this in Edinburgh when the number of holes became critical. They created a "task force" that ran around the city throwing tar in holes and banging it down a bit. Without traffic lights or anything like that, just a few cones.

The second they moved on the busses started squeezing the tar out of the holes. Within hours the effort had been wasted.

The best repair is to first cut the hole square, then follow the procedure WM outlined. The square edges hold the tar in and stop it squishing out again. For small potholes it doesn't take that much longer but the result, as said, lasts years.

This is all part of climate change. These events used to happen annually and as such the knowledge of how to handle them and the budget for handling them were fully available. In fact they became more and more efficient about dealing with them. As soon as these events become every 5 years or every decade, the knowledge vanishes and the budget vanishes faster.

Same around here.
Whatever is done tends to be done on the cheap and lasts a couple of months.
Instead of the correct procedure, Te and Albert turn up wih a bucket of tarmac and whack it down with a shovel.
Oh I forgot.
Before this happens the council turn up aand paint a white line around the potholes to be filled in. Sometimes they turn up and actually do the work, sometimes not.
The road surface tends to be worst around things like speed pillows, etc.

Pretty bad here too, and worse since the recent snow!