http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ry/4104180.stm

Nice to finally get another cause other than speeding!

 

Trouble is they are too busy installing 'traffic calming' measures (speed humps and the like) to spend any resource on actual maintenance work.

Nobody notices the potholes though - or speed humps for that matter - as they all swan around in big bouncey 4x4 SUVs

 

I noticed on Saturday night when the Misses was driving me home from the pub: "Mind that..." *THUD* "....pothole."

 

Keep quiet if I were you.

I really would be asking you local councils where all the ******* money is going - it doesn't seem to be going on the schools, NHS, law & order or the roads .

Just wait for next years council tax - up 50% to pay for the dangerous roads

 

Dave

Your statement got me thinking. I cant see any reason why that cant or wont work imo.

I wonder if the stopping distance guidelines work to the lowest common denominator for car / road.

ie. a 20 year old fiesta pop on a council estate road thats had bonfires in it and the odd dead dog lying in it

I suspect given the state of the roads today, the stopping distances would have to be lengthened

 

The highway code stopping distances are for an Allegro with one drum brake on crossply tyres. You would need loads and loads of dead dogs to compete with that (although dead dogs brains have been reported to be the slipperiest substance know to man)

 

As I mentioned earlier, its not surprising since so littl of our VED goes on maintaining or improving the roads, about 20% only.

It shows with all the potholes etc. and also the "sleeping policemen" are eventually going to cause extra wear and damage to our suspensions.

There was a time when the authorities were proud of the condition of the roads in this country, that has all gone by the board now of course. All those expenses and freebie trips to twinned towns and the increases in councillors' allowances are far more important.

It is a fact as most bikers know that newly laid tarmac can be slippery for some time afterwards. One lad was killed near here for that reason. They should at least warn motorist of that if they use that type of material. Some kind of oil seeps out onto the road surface.

Les

 

Interesting programme that last night. I remember all the times I'm driving along and see cars skidding off all over the place - on newly laid roads there's more cars upside down on embankments than there are on the road itself! Scary stuff...
There are no roads in the world slippier than the pink roads in Skelmersdale - Like sheet ice when wet - but still the only people who skid on them are those not driving ahead along with they key factor of simply going too quick - Like ME! I skidded once in Skem - why? Went into a roundabout too fast, not paying attention to the road - and yes completely my fault...
I believe that many of these accidents speed is still culpable even if one road surface is still slippier than another.
It was a real scaremonger report IMO - some of the examples were sad and I felt for the victims , but the woman who said "I looked down and the speedo said 20" as if that ruled out speeding into the bend... "Look Love, your speedo could have said 0 but if ya wheels have locked you could have been doing 80" sprang to mind...
Anyhoo some roads are slippier than others and when new tarmac is laid I guess the road should either include more grit or have warning signs and careful monitoring by the council...
OR Maybe they should lower the speeds on newly laid roads and enforce with cameras until they have settled - thus reducing serious accidents and funding the new tarmac at the same time...Now there's an idea...

 

It's interesting to see that roadsurfaces indeed are a very important contributary factor in terms of the causes and avoiding of accidents.

But there are also many other things that have escaped a mention that are equally or more important contributary factors:

One thats always on the top of my list is tyres. There is a huge amount of poeple on the road that think a tyre is a tyre and go to kiwk fit and have the cheapest tyre they stock fitted (road champ, nankang, viking etc). Most of these tyres IMO are lethal, especially on a wet road and could easily make the difference between avoiding an accident or being involved in one.

 

During the 70's the Department of Transport were approached by a large tyre manufacturer (I forget which) to see if they would be interested in doing parallel development of road surfaces and tyre manufacture in order to improve both grip & wear rates. The DoT told the manufacturer in no uncertain terms that they knew all they needed to know about building roads and didn't need some 'outsiders' telling them what to do

 

It was probably MICHELIN