Pot Holes

[fungus]

I have just read this on the Safe Speed website. Thankfully Dorset Couny Council saw fit to repair pot holes fairly promptly. But what are your local council like on road maintainence? Do they see pot holes as a means of slowing down traffic?

The Path to Road Safety is Not Paved with Pot Holes

For the Nave stock's Parish Council to think, that for one minute that leaving
pot holes in the road is a good idea,
could not be further from the truth, and takes road safety to an ever growing
sinking mire.
"To distract a driver's concentration on pot holes that deliberately go
un-repaired, beggars belief." Claire, co-
founder of Safe Speed continues, "I can easily see many claims for damaged
vehicles and accidents, from this,
they are leaving themselves open to a potential corporate manslaughter charge,
if a fatality occurs."

"What if someone slipped or fell off a bike, or horse, into the path of a
vehicle?"
She went on to explain that, a few years ago a Manchester local MP said a very
similar thing, that the pot holes
would help in slowing traffic, a motorcyclist swerving to miss a pothole
crashed, and tragically died, as a
consequence. She said "You would think they may have learned from this !"
"To subject the public to broken uneven roads, totally fails in their legal duty
of care."

"There are several campaigns running at the moment that note the dangers of
potholes on our roads, and are
helping to notify appropriate authorities, of them. We would strongly encourage
everyone to notify their local
authority directly, and especially for the Navestock area".

Pot Holes can be hard to see, due to variation in road colour and texture.
We glance at the road as we drive, on the predictable belief that good road
maintence is a given, not worrying
about deliberately left potholes to catch out the unwary. To chose to
deliberately leave a road in an ever
increasing deteriorating state is utterly shameful.
We drive attempting to observe all hazards, and at an appropriate speed for the
conditions, but sometimes there
are so many potholes, it is impossible to miss them all.
After a pot hole, event how many people remember to check their wheel alignment,
or tyres for bulges and other
steering issues? Even injury to your hands can occur. The damage to suspension
or other car components may
cause a crash later, and even fatalities, it is an appalling and totally
irresponsible attitude.
We cannot simply ignore that road use requires maintenance. We pay very large
amounts to the Councils to
provide this maintenance but has it really come down to excuses instead of
repairs ?

Common sense should tell them in a flash that this is never going to be safe,
sensible, or, in the public interest. We
urgently suggest that they rethink, as they are putting lives at risk.
Road Safety should never be considered so lightly, we need engineers advising
Councils on all maintenance
issues.

"Pot holes are potentially a lethal problem on the road, a driver / rider may
loose vehicle control, when the vehicle
jerks unexpectedly, or when they swerve around the pot hole. They may also be
unaware of other developing
hazards.

What an appalling casual attitude to human life. The local economy is likely to
suffer as well.
Even when Council cut-backs are likely, there is never a quick, or cheap route
to road safety.


Nigel ADI
IAM trainee observer

[hanse cronje]

it was featured on bbc morning
they had a poor cyclist whose face had been badly damaged due to hitting a pot hole

no doubt the hollier than thou can explain to him their reasoning behind it - perhaps they see it as colateral damage as long as the vehicle of satan is slowed

[jont]

It's strange, isn't it. On one hand I'm sure I've read of councils complaining they spend more on paying for damage claims from motorists for pothole damage than fixing them, then some seem to think leaving them is a good idea. In South Glos I suspect none of the councillors can live round here, and certainly aren't road users otherwise they'd want to sort out the craters that litter the roads. If "speed" is a contributory factor in accidents, I wonder how much worn suspension components/mal-adjusted tracking contributes and how much of that is caused by pot hole and poor road surface damage. I'm fairly sure I posted a link recently to an article where a coroner sited the poor state of the road (notified to the council 6 months before a fatal accident) as contributing to the loss of control that caused the accident. I wonder if the new corporate manslaughter rules apply to councils.

Damn, you seem to have got me started ranting, and that's before I even get onto the costs wasted on patching roads that are broken again 6 months (or perhaps more importantly for the council, a financial year) later, but they'd rather spend 1x every year indefinitely and still having a crap surface than 10x every 20 years surfacing the roads properly.

[Big Err]

Road maintenance has been superbly under funded for years - particularly for local authority roads.

During my 10 year stint in highways maintenance, the budget never increased despite increase costs and the introduction of the quarry and tipping taxes. The end of year bonanza that came from other departments underspends in February and March even decreased over the years.

So no surprises about the number of holes, defects etc.

[TripleS]

Road maintenance has been superbly under funded for years - particularly for local authority roads.

Scarborough Borough Council might have a better chance of being able to spend something on road maintenance if they didn't waste so much money on:

a) installing additional traffic lights causing much worse congestion that might otherwise be the case
b) creating cycle lanes in short bits and pieces that yield no benefit whatsoever
c) putting down various road markings that are also no help to anybody
d) pissing about with numerous examples of what they pompously refer to as Traffic Management
e) the excessive application of high grip road surfacing where it serves no useful purpose

As far as the local road system and traffic matters are concerned the regime is a complete PITA and ought to be sacked forthwith.

Best wishes all,
Dave.