I'm sure we have had this one before, but I cant find the original. Anyway, I've reported a few online to KCC, I know I'm wasting my time, but it just makes me feel a bit better to have a moan. If you want a laugh have a look at this page from their website http://www.kent.gov.uk/roads_and_transport/highway_maintenance/fault_reporting/potholes.aspx One area of multiple holes I reported on the 17 feb is still untouched, although I noticed yesterday that they had filled two very much smaller holes in the same road, just yards from the ones I reported. The area of holes I reported tonight was actually marked with while paint, for repair last summer, but they never filled them, I can only assume it was done to stop people reporting them. Their website appears to need updating, I particularly like this old line from last year, "How potholes form Potholes form when water gets into cracks in the road then freezes, making the crack bigger and creating a hole. When cars then drive over it, the hole gets bigger and deeper." There hasn't been any frost this year, and its obviously all our fault for having the audacity to actually drive on these roads and make the holes bigger. I've noticed there is no mention of rubbish maintenance on their part and service industries burrowing around trying to find their lost pipes, or even the fact that the government dont give them enough money to do the job. Shouldn't the boss of the KCC, who gets paid a fair wack of money each year, (notice I said paid as opposed to earns), get off his large backside, and along with all the other top Council leaders force the government to come up with the cash.
I am sure I have said this before too, but surely it is high time we held the government accountable for this utter mess? We all pay various taxes, and whilst none of them are specified as being solely for roads maintenance, the roads are an integral part of the infrastructure of this country. Those roads should be fit for purpose, and maintained regularly to ensure that they are fit for purpose. If we wind the clock back to the times when many of our roads were last resurfaced (so, 80's roughly), those road surfaces were designed to last 10 years or 20 at a stretch according to this site : In short, more and more of our roads have exceeded their design life, and the more the situation is allowed to continue, the more the problem will just keep getting bigger and bigger; the more the roads deteriorate, the more that needs to be done to them to make them fit again. I can think of quite a few sections of road where large parts have been resurfaced, only for the road to be cream-crackered within a relatively short space of time because the sub-surface underneath the road was past it, and all the resurfacing achieved was to hide the problems for a wee while. The government made a big thing of pledging an extra £140m last week to help repair some of the damage to the roads as a result of the storms and flooding - that is a mere drop in the ocean when the cost of repairs and resurfacing is considered. Billions need to be invested in our roads infrastructure, and fast - - the government doing the ostrich impression is only going to see that bill rise.
There was a news report a few weeks ago here in Wales, due to cut backs they cannot afford to maintain all the roads, where is our car tax going ??
Car tax does not go to pay for the roads @pamsdish - if it did, we would have the best roads in the world! Vehicle Excise Duty raised £5.63 billion in 2009, yet only just over £1.3 billion was spent, and interestingly that particular year more money was spent than any other year in the decade 2003 to 2013. What is worse, is the taxation figure for VED does not take into account the money raised from Fuel Duty and VAT. We are reaping the seeds that Maggie Thatcher sowed all those years ago. Capitalism and essential services should never have been mixed in my opinion, as all it leads to is the costs spiralling even further thanks to the profit of the contractor, the auditors that will check on the contractor, and all the other cling-ons.
Potholes are not just annoying, they are downright dangerous. I hit one once at fairly low speed (about 40mph on a road that has a 60mph limit), and I thought I'd crashed at first. The second thing I did (the first thing was to frantically try to regain control of my car which was now on the wrong side of the road going sideways - and it wasn't even Gothilda), was to look around for the other car or whatever I'd hit that I hadn't seen. The reason I never saw it is because there was no other car to see, it was a massive great crater in the road that I'd hit. Nearside front wishbone damaged, nearside front wheel bearing done, bent drive shaft, broken drop-link, excessive play in the nearside steering control arm. It wasn't like that before I belted it. Oh, and wife banged her head on the side window, and although I had nothing to show for it, I certainly felt it on my wrists and shoulders, partly from the initial wallop and partly from the very forceful steering I had to do to get back under control. In a seperate incident entirely, one poor chap was not so lucky. He was killed after he hit a pothole on his pushbike, and was thrown into the path of a car. His widow is rightly suing the council responsible. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26504065 From the article (Mr Turnbull is the coroner in this case):
And there I was thinking that potholes only existed on our roads. Seriously, for a very long time now, people and the media have been giving the councils (we call them municipalities here) a hard time (and deservedly so) about potholes being left for unreasonable time periods. So now what the bigger councils are doing is releasing a smartphone app where one takes a photo of the pothole, the app automatically adds GPS data, logs it to their database and the user gets back a reference number to follow up on. The idea being that progress can then be checked via that reference number. Perhaps the powers that be finally woke up and realized that fixing the potholes is actually cheaper then paying out for damages caused by them to vehicles.
Part of the problem here @DIY-Dave is that the repair quite often consists of a bucket of cold tar mix being tipped into the offending hole and then champed down with a tool that is essentially a pole with a flat metal square welded to one end. The material used is much softer than normal road surfaces, and therefore is easily cast back out of the hole within hours/days. The ones that really scare me is the repairs that get done to manhole covers - I reported a couple of manhole covers that were collapsing last year that are located on a very busy dual carriageway that leads out to the M3 from Central London - see street view - the one nearest the middle of the carriageway was ignored, the one nearest the side of the road was 'repaired' within a couple of days of reporting - - - the repair was to simply lob a load of tar on top of the manhole cover and flatten it off level with the road; and it has remained that way ever since. Now, I would presume that something is wrong underneath that manhole cover for it to have been sinking in the first place, and I don't think that I am too far off the mark by assuming that adding extra weight on top of the lid is only going to make matters worse? The other cost that never seems to be associated with potholes or poor road surfaces is damage to services - there was one road near to me which suffered numerous burst water mains (and they were big ones too!), and yet nobody seemed to twig that one of the biggest factors was the simple fact that the road surface resembled the surface of the moon - heavy vehicles using the road day after day, bumping up and down into the ruts and holes in the road then led to fatigue in the pipes and off they would go like fountains.
@fat controller We have similar problems here but now a new system has already been implemented (assuming to go along with the smartphone app) in that pothole repairs are now sub-contracted and no longer being done by the actual councils. The companies being contracted to repair the potholes for the councils are then subjected to reviews every so often and depending on how quickly the potholes were repaired and also how many times the same pothole had to be repaired, will determine if their contract is extended or not. In theory it sounds like a good system but in practice, time will tell.
One way they seem to be "repairing"holes around here is with some kind of pipe arrangement that blasts tar and stones into the hole, they dont appear to roll it afterwards. Consequentially, its as bumpy as hell and remains like that until the stuff all comes out the hole in a couple of weeks time, by which time its not an old pot hole, its a completely new one that goes back on the list to fill. You get a lot of loose grit hanging around for days aftyerwards, until its cracked a few windscreens. I'm pretty sure contractors are making a bundle out of this, they must be, its a job for life, just going round in circles bodging up holes in roads. I think manholes are the responsibility of the service company they belong to, I could be wrong, but whoever they are, even new ones are never flush with the road. Not sure whether I like the raised ones or the sunken ones best, the ones that rattle when you drive over them are the ones I dislike most though,
