Monday 21st March 2005

Under-funding risks road safety

Shocking state of UK roads bad for safety and cars

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All local authorities in Wales and 89 per cent in England believe that there is a threat to the safety of road users because of under-funding for road maintenance.

Following the publication today of a survey showing the shocking state of local roads, the RAC Foundation has called for an immediate commitment from Government of more cash to address the problems.

The annual ALARM survey into the state of roads in England and Wales shows:

• English authorities receive just 40 per cent of the budget they need to spend on local roads.
• Welsh authorities fare even worse, receiving only 28 per cent of the budget they require – just one pound per metre a year is spent on roads in Wales in comparison to two pounds in the rest of England and six in London.
• English authorities (including London) spend 106 million pounds last year on compensation claims because of damage to vehicles or road accidents due to road structural conditions. Wales spent 17 million pounds on claims.
• Those claims have increased by more than 60 per cent in England (outside of London), 43 per cent in London and a massive 187 per cent in Wales over the past decade.
• Roads are re-surfaced every 51 years in England (outside of London) and 61 years in Wales. London’s roads are resurfaced every 23 years. The recommendation for road resurfacing is 10 – 20 years depending on road type.
• Visual defects, including cracking, deterioration, patching and potholes have risen by 130 per cent in Wales and 69 per cent in England (outside of London). In London the increase is 41 per cent.
• Thirty-nine per cent of the total roads budget available to local authorities in Wales is spent on reactive maintenance. In England (other than London) it’s a quarter and in London 37 per cent.

Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation said, "The survey makes for uncomfortable reading. Persistent under funding of road maintenance has led to a situation whereby 100 per cent of local authorities in Wales and almost 90 per cent in England believe this creates a real threat to road-user safety. There is still a massive shortfall in terms of what engineers need to maintain our roads adequately. Surely, this is an accident waiting to happen.

"Motorists contribute £42 billion to the Treasury in motoring taxes each year. Yet only £6 billion is spent on roads. We have a right to expect and get a safe road network. We claim to be one of the world’s leading economies yet we have a third world transport infrastructure.

"Ninety-three per cent of all passenger traffic is by road, not just by car, but according to the survey local authorities in England can only afford to re-surface roads once every 51 years when the recommendation is once every 10-20 years. It’s even worse in Wales. Adequate money must be provided to local authorities to allow them to undertake this work and measures must be put in place to ensure that money earmarked for road spending is not diverted elsewhere."

[peter450]

Yes but the only thing this goverment is concerned with is speeding an thats taken care of by speed camara's which have a nice side bennifit of making money (hence the goverments keeness on this particular road safty measure) what this article is proposing is gonna cost money so the goverment cant rake it in an claim to be saving lives they can only claim to be making the roads safer (funny how that only became a priority when they realised money could be made out of it) so i doubt we'l be seeing much money for this iniative

[FesterNath]

Two things annoy me about this article: first obviously how little the motorist gets in return for his or her tax, and secondly how ignorant of political geography some people are. Since when has England and Wales constituted 'the UK'? My passport reads "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". Do some people really not know this, or are they just brushing aside the 8 million people outside of England and Wales that are members of the UK?

[james_j]

The roads are an utter disgrace.

In some areas, a 4X4 is essential if you don't want to risk wheel and suspension damage as well as regular realignment expenses.

[mikeatBB]

In addition to the lack of maintenance many crashes could be caused by a road’s MUCH CHEAPER surfacing material that's being misused, according to police crash investigators. They're worried because in certain conditions, stone mastic asphalt (SMA) offers little grip for two years until bedded in. And SMA is the blacktop often used for motorways and main roads in the UK -- yet it's been banned in Ireland. because of safety concerns. A police sergeant reported how in 2001 he tested some newly laid SMA on a warm sunny August day, in the course of investigating the cause of a crash. He said, "I jumped on the brakes and the car just kept going and going. Instead of the screaming of tyre on road and a cloud of smoke, there was just a gentle hiss and I skidded far further than I ever expected to." He said that he was very surprised and concluded that the grip level was low. Investigating further and examining the tyres of his car, Allen found that the heat generated by the tyres as they braked had melted the bitumen so that, instead of gripping stones, the car was floating on molten bitumen.
An industry body said that it didn't TEST for skid resistance on new roads because it ASSUMED older roads would cause the problem.
The Government says it is spending more than £31 billion over 10 years on highway repairs. The PPP comment...WHICH ten years? they reduced road spending by over £14 billion over the last 8 years since 1997!
The PPP says………What has happened since 2001 and are Motorists being blamed for crashes on this surface??. The SPEED KILLS POLICY hides all the real problems!. AND there has been a significant deterioration in the Highways Agency's Performance leading to congestion chaos across the road network.

[Peter Ward]

I notice how much more, proportionally, is spent in London than the rest of the country. I guess this is so that the Islington elite can see the benefits of their taxes while the rest of us suffer the potholes.

It's like the old days when the country was spruced up in preparation for the royal "progresses". Then it was for the ruler. Now it's for the ruled, but only for those deemed likely to make a difference to who rules. So I'm sure if you look across the UK averages you'll see some constituencies doing pretty well for road repairs, and some not so well. The best will be marginals, followed by Labour safe seats, and then tory seats last (or perhaps Plaid Cymru?). Probably applies to other things like schools, hospitals, dentists, council tax rises....

[grahambell]

And doesn't it seem strange that while there's not enough money to repair all the potholes that damage your suspension, there always seems to be money to install plenty of speed humps - which damage your suspension.

[wonderland]

Hear hear... the roads around my area of N. Wales are terrible even though the local council seems to believe that it's beneficial to stick massive speed cushions every 20 yards. I've already had one new exhaust and need new suspension and alignment soon because the car us suffering. It's an absolute pain in the that I can't get home without crossing about 10 speed cushions and can't see my friends without crossing about 20, each time damaging the car just that little bit more.

With all the tarmac that's been used building the hundreds of speed ramps and cushions all over the place, i'm sure they could have completely resurfaced the worse of these roads!!

Not a happy bunny