What is going to happen to our roads?

[anonymous-user]

Ares said:

Having checked with a lawyer, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. They would if it hadn't been reported. (thats not to say I'll be successful)

Beyond that, the only alternative route I can take has worse potholes (also reported), and I don't think the headmaster at my daughter's school would accept her missing school for a week, especially the week of ISI test being done, due to a pothole.

That’s good to know. Thanks.

[bobbo89]

Ares said:

Having checked with a lawyer, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. They would if it hadn't been reported. (thats not to say I'll be successful)

Not necessarily, all depends on the councils policy and time frames they work to from a report coming in, to being repaired. You may find that when you reported it 7 days previously it was logged as a cat2 and so given a 4 week time frame.

[Paddymcc]

Limpet said:

In the council's defence, part of the problem in this area at least, seems to be caused by utility companies digging up entire stretches of road, and then making cheap patchwork bodge repairs which seem to last about six months before breaking up. We've had SSE replacing electricity cables on my estate recently, and the state they have left the roads and pavements in beggars belief. They've just dug trenches, and patched them afterwards, often with the repair not even sitting at the same level as the surrounding surface. It's only a matter of a few good frosts before it all starts to fall apart.

I would like to see legislation passed to force any organisation digging up a road for any reason at all, to pay to have the road properly resurfaced to an agreed standard.

I haven't ridden a motorbike for about 10 years now, but I often think the dilapidated state of our roads must now be a serious hazard for motorcyclists.

Edited by Limpet on Monday 19th February 15:33

this really boils my piss too.

However the road that runs up to my house was recently resurfaced and i was completely and utterly shocked at what happened. The road chaps came out and scraped the old tar from the road, the gas and electric companies then came out and done their digging and pipe laying and the road guys then finished it all off. Nearly 2 years on and the surface is still perfect.

In comparison a mile long stretch of road was replaced a few years ago where i used to live. About 6mths after this work was done the gas companies decided to start digging a trench to lay pipes. Said trench just had to be where your passenger wheel sits in the lane and after a few months later was uneven, rutted and starting to break up. They always seem to try to use the least amount of tarmac possible to resurface which ever part they dug up.

They should be made to replace the complete lane of tarmac.

[swisstoni]

Like the NHS and their famous lightbulbs, I bet the price of the crap dob of tar pothole ‘repairs’ are astronomical.

I reported a pothole to my local council a couple of weeks ago. It was duly repaired.

Were the numerous other lesser holes a few inches away repaired at the same time?
Not on your Nelly.

Them’s gold in them thar holes. Another visit will be a nice little earner for someone.
IE some contractor.

Edited by swisstoni on Monday 19th February 18:19

[Ares]

bobbo89 said:

Ares said:

Having checked with a lawyer, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. They would if it hadn't been reported. (thats not to say I'll be successful)

Not necessarily, all depends on the councils policy and time frames they work to from a report coming in, to being repaired. You may find that when you reported it 7 days previously it was logged as a cat2 and so given a 4 week time frame.

From what I've discovered, it doesn't matter it's deemed category, if damage has been cause by a known defect, the council are liable.

Making them pay is a whole different ball game....!!!

[TurboHatchback]

Ares said:

Faz50 said:

Ares said:

Roads are a joke. As per my other thread, I've got a £550 tyre repair bill from a pothole*:



(*which will be forwarded to the council....as I reported the pothole 7days earlier)

But chatting to my dad over the weekend, got pulled by the Police under the suspicion of being over the DD limit as he was swerving all over the road. He was avoiding potholes. The driving style we are being forced to adopt cannot be deemed safe.

Out of interest, if the council legal team asked why you went through a pothole you knew was there, where do you stand legally trying to get them to pay?

Having checked with a lawyer, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. They would if it hadn't been reported. (thats not to say I'll be successful)

Beyond that, the only alternative route I can take has worse potholes (also reported), and I don't think the headmaster at my daughter's school would accept her missing school for a week, especially the week of ISI test being done, due to a pothole.

So you knew there was a pothole, voluntarily drove your car into it and damaged it and now you think that the council, i.e. the taxpayer, i.e. everyone should subsidise ridiculously expensive new tyres for your car?

Am I alone in thinking this is a really bizarre sense of entitlement and that people should take personal responsibility for looking where they're going and paying for self-inflicted damage themselves?

[bobbo89]

Ares said:

From what I've discovered, it doesn't matter it's deemed category, if damage has been cause by a known defect, the council are liable.

Making them pay is a whole different ball game....!!!

So from the second you put the phone down having reported it, the council then becomes liable for any damage caused and must pay out to anyone who makes a claim?

Trust me, it really isn't that simple!

[Ares]

TurboHatchback said:

So you knew there was a pothole, voluntarily drove your car into it and damaged it and now you think that the council, i.e. the taxpayer, i.e. everyone should subsidise ridiculously expensive new tyres for your car?

Am I alone in thinking this is a really bizarre sense of entitlement and that people should take personal responsibility for looking where they're going and paying for self-inflicted damage themselves?

Voluntarily drove into a pothole? Really?

[nickfrog]

kambites said:

RedSwede said:

One way or another, we need more money hitting the budgets for road repairs (and other civic infrastructure and institutions too) IMO.

I don't disagree, but I think that statement is as true of almost every other country in Europe (and in some cases very much more true).

My extensive experience of driving in France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium and Germany tells me the exact opposite. We are bottom of the pile by a long way.

Many back roads around Chichester and the east of Hampshire are littered with very deep and large potholes.

Gross under investment over the past 30 years compared to the above countries.

Potholes on secondary French or German roads simply do not exist for very long whereas I have seen the same wheel buckling pothole around Goodwood for months. The eventual repair lasted a few weeks.

Like the OP I find our road (and a good proportion of our transport infrastructure) almost medieval compared to the rest of the EU.

[captainaverage]

The roads will not be repaired and they're f*cked forever.

[TheInsanity1234]

It does explain why everybody seems to be buying SUVs, as the longer suspension travel and thicker tyres would help make life more bearable on the potholed roads, BUT if everybody's driving bigger and heavier SUVs, then this is putting more pressure on said road surfaces thus causing them to detoriate faster... It's a vicious downward spiral I think.

[Roger Irrelevant]

bobbo89 said:

Ares said:

From what I've discovered, it doesn't matter it's deemed category, if damage has been cause by a known defect, the council are liable.

Making them pay is a whole different ball game....!!!

So from the second you put the phone down having reported it, the council then becomes liable for any damage caused and must pay out to anyone who makes a claim?

Trust me, it really isn't that simple!

Agree; Ares if a lawyer's told you that if the council know about a pothole then they're automatically liable for any damage that is caused by it, then get another lawyer. Whoever is responsible for maintaining the road has a duty to put it right within a reasonable time, and what is a reasonable time will depend on, inter alia, the resources available to them. Is within a week, as in your case, reasonable? Maybe, maybe not, it's impossible to tell in isolation.

[spaximus]

The roads have got worse and if politicians spent more time driving on them instead of in first class on the rails they would see what we do.

Reasons for the decline are many but what really annoys me is when they actually do any work the standard is shocking. A road local to me was resurface with proper new tarmac, but they didn't bother fixing the holes in the old surface correctly, so from day one it was a roller coaster finish. Whoever inspected that from the council and passing it either set the spec wrong, or didn't care. After all it is not their money.

When any company digs up a pavement or road, they should make sure the finish is as before. Too often they chuck the dirt back in a quick walk over with a whacker plate, slap some tar about and put a bit of tarmac on top. After 6 weeks the traffic have now pounded the substrate down and the repair is ripe for puddles which freeze.

It is why people now get 4x4, speed bumps are a minor irritation and a pothole is unlikely to damage a wheel as the fat sidewall tyre takes the hit.

[irc]

emicen said:

- A1/M1/A1(M) upgrades
- Completion of the M74-M6 (no longer M74-A74-M6)
- M8 / M73 / M74 upgrades
- M74 through Glasgow Southside completion to link to M8
- M80 upgrade removing A80 & Auchenkilns roundabout pandemonium
- Queensferry crossing (not a perfect solution but damn sight better than the old Forth Road Bridge)

I’m sure there’s plenty more I don’t know about having not driven on them personally, but there’s been significant works on all those roads during my driving lifetime.

Though the M80 upgrade was a major cockup. Civil engineers wanted dual 4 lanes. Looked at designs for dual 3 lanes. That would have only increased the budget from £320M to £355M. They were over-ruled and it was built as dual 2 lane (linking 4 motorway lanes to north and south) and was overcapacity as soon as it opened. Near standstill from 7am every morning.

And it was built using a 30 year PFI build and maintain so any future changes will be expensive and need contracts renegotiated.

The M74 through Glasgow Southside completion to link to M8 nearly didn't happen as the Reporter at the public enquiry listened to the tree huggers. He had to be over-ruled by the Minister to let it go ahead.

[irc]

Ares said:

TurboHatchback said:

So you knew there was a pothole, voluntarily drove your car into it and damaged it and now you think that the council, i.e. the taxpayer, i.e. everyone should subsidise ridiculously expensive new tyres for your car?

Am I alone in thinking this is a really bizarre sense of entitlement and that people should take personal responsibility for looking where they're going and paying for self-inflicted damage themselves?

Voluntarily drove into a pothole? Really?

Well devils advocate - the council may claim as you reported the pothole you knew it was there and should have been able to avoid it.

[Ares]

bobbo89 said:

Ares said:

From what I've discovered, it doesn't matter it's deemed category, if damage has been cause by a known defect, the council are liable.

Making them pay is a whole different ball game....!!!

So from the second you put the phone down having reported it, the council then becomes liable for any damage caused and must pay out to anyone who makes a claim?

Trust me, it really isn't that simple!

NO!! I haven't said that. You can only make a claim if the council knew about it.

....you obviously missed the bit where I said "Making them pay is a whole different ball game....!!!"

[Ares]

Roger Irrelevant said:

bobbo89 said:

Ares said:

From what I've discovered, it doesn't matter it's deemed category, if damage has been cause by a known defect, the council are liable.

Making them pay is a whole different ball game....!!!

So from the second you put the phone down having reported it, the council then becomes liable for any damage caused and must pay out to anyone who makes a claim?

Trust me, it really isn't that simple!

Agree; Ares if a lawyer's told you that if the council know about a pothole then they're automatically liable for any damage that is caused by it, then get another lawyer. Whoever is responsible for maintaining the road has a duty to put it right within a reasonable time, and what is a reasonable time will depend on, inter alia, the resources available to them. Is within a week, as in your case, reasonable? Maybe, maybe not, it's impossible to tell in isolation.

I haven't said that. But it doesn't matter on the category, that was the advice I was given. If it's bad enough to cause damage (which at 8-9" deep it was, as my tyre proves), it's bad enough to warrant a claim. And 7 days to rectify is more than reasonable time. General advice is three working days, but even within that time, liability can be established if the defect is severe enough.

[Ares]

irc said:

Ares said:

TurboHatchback said:

So you knew there was a pothole, voluntarily drove your car into it and damaged it and now you think that the council, i.e. the taxpayer, i.e. everyone should subsidise ridiculously expensive new tyres for your car?

Am I alone in thinking this is a really bizarre sense of entitlement and that people should take personal responsibility for looking where they're going and paying for self-inflicted damage themselves?

Voluntarily drove into a pothole? Really?

Well devils advocate - the council may claim as you reported the pothole you knew it was there and should have been able to avoid it.

As said elsewhere. The same council would take issue with me not taking my daughter to school because of a pothole. But just because you know that a pothole, one of 30+ within 1/2 mile is there, does not mean you can automatically avoid them.

And as you cannot make a claim unless you can prove the council were aware of the defect, them being able to wriggle out on the basis you suggest, would be a little convenient.

Furthermore, having a pothole, and in this case several potholes, on a blind bend, avoid them is not always easy.

[Cold]

Ares said:

Furthermore, having a pothole, and in this case several potholes, on a blind bend, avoid them is not always easy.

In other words, you have a bad memory and your car has bad brakes and bad steering.

[kuro]

After reading through this thread I must be witnessing a ongoing miracle.

Firstly the Devon lane that leads to where I work was so bad it was used as the basis for a TV news report a couple of years ago. The following year large sections of it were completely resurfaced and the rest repaired properly where required.

At the beginning of last week the same treatment is being applied to the entire length of the adjoining road that leads out to the a377 at Exeter. By the end of this week I'll no longer have to drive the last part of my commute looking like an F1 driver warming up his tyres.