Pot Holes - Larger than Life

[SpokeyDokey]

Today: North Fylde, Lancs.

Terrible potholes - some 4-6" deep.

On two occasions traffic was virtually at a standstill on separate busy roads as we navigated through some horrendous clusters.

 

[winjim]

They were saying on the Today programme this morning that the bill for repairing the backlog of potholes currently stands at £18 billion.

They could repair them all tomorrow, continue to allow motor traffic to multiply and have exactly the same problem a year from now. Or they could use this as an opportunity to rethink the structure and design of our roads with perhaps an emphasis on modes of transport which are less destructive.

 

[bluenotebob]

Very few potholes over here in France ... but, of course, we're still in the EU ...

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Rain.

Or rather ... the rain sitting on the road surface for hours-> days.

I used to think frosts were the main tarmac killer, but I barely saw any this year and it's been easily the worst winter for potholes. what we HAVE had is 2 months without dry roads - and that's the same period when the holes multiplied.

Yes, I was going to post the same.
But why is the rain sitting on roads for days?
Because it's years since the drain grates have been cleaned.
Year after year fallen leaves and debris have obstructed the drains in my area.
Surely it's cheaper to employ someone to clean them (the wee machine sweeper that you don't see anymore) than to repair all the giant potholes?

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Very few potholes over here in France ... but, of course, we're still in the EU ...

UK roads were already full of potholes prior to 2020

 

[DRM]

M62 East bound near to Outlane Huddersfield, just at the end of the road works is a crater about 4 to 5 feet long, & 2 feet wide on the outside lane

 

[fossyant]

A couple of weeks ago, I hit a pothole in the eveneing which blew out a tyre on a pretty rural road. Pulled over into a gateway, changed the wheel in the dark and rain and got home.

A few days later on a Sunday night, Mrs Suggested getting a curry. As I had the spare on my car, asked if I could borrow hers . . . guess what? Another pothole and another blown tyre.

£180 to replace both tyres on the Monday morning. Options for tyres were expensive, mid-range or cheapest. I opted for cheapest . . . what's the point in splurging on top of the range tyres when you're likely to hit another pothole in a few weeks?

Cheap tyres are called ditch finders for a reason.

 

[fossyant]

The roads being bad, that's nothing new after winter. Might be a reason gravel bikes are getting popular though.

 

[Alex321]

Are county councils still circling pot holes with white spray paint? I drove to nearby Clitheroe in the Ribble Valley Lancashire yesterday, on a wet and windy day and encountered lots of pot holes that weren't white paint circled. The Ribble Valley is supposed to be one of the most affluent boroughs in Britain, so why can't the council afford to mark their potholes folk ask. Well, as we know it's the county not the borough council which is/are responsible for the roads of each town. Therefore Lancashire County Council are responsible for marking pot holes in the borough of Ribble Valley, not the town council. I didn't see any pot holes white paint circled which meant they were hard to see, especially on wet roads.

It is yellow paint round here - designating a hole which is scheduled for repair. The paint isn't to make the potholes easier to see (though it may help a little), it is to tell the contractors which holes to fill.

 

[Alex321]

UK roads were already full of potholes prior to 2020

Nowhere near as many as there seem to be this year.

But I think we have had one of the wettest winter/spring periods I can recall.

 

[lazybloke]

I'm sure there are multiple factors at play, including seasonal variation, a particularly wet winter, high levels of traffic and increasing vehicle weight...

But i can't help thinking cost-cutting is a major issue too; poor quality materials, poor workmanship, often the cheapest method...

Even new surfaces degrade quickly; repairs last only days, occasionally only hours; surface dressing fills the drains and exacerbates flooding; the obsession of running services under roads means endless trenches and back-filling; etc etc.

All choices aimed at delivering the most bang for your buck in the short term, but the worst possible long term reliability.

Our roads (and railways) can't even cope with a British 'heatwave'; other countries manage just fine despite having much higher temperature swings between the seasons!

The cost of living can feel high in this country, and yet we collectively need to pay more tax.

 

[ColinJ]

Here are a couple from my Devon collection!

I hit a submerged pothole hard and got an instant flat tyre. I DID take a picture of the road...

View attachment 727268

View attachment 727267
What I didn't realise for a few hours was that the force of the impact was so great that it affected my eyes! When I got back to my sister's place, I started seeing two or three times the previous number of (eye!) floaters, but also (much more alarmingly) vivid flashes of light.

I had my eyes checked and was told that the shock of the impact had probably loosened the thick fluid in the eyes, and the motion between that and the retinas was causing the sensation of flashes of light. There doesn't seem to be any serious damage done. I'm still irritated by floaters, but the flashes reduced over a period of 6 or 7 months and I am rarely bothered by them now.

PS If you ever get a sudden increase in floaters or start seeing 'flashies', get your eyes checked ASAP because that liquid (vitreous humour??) going walkabout can lead to a detached retina and serious vision loss!

My eyes have not fully recovered from that impact! 3 years later I still see flashes of light and have scores of 'floaters' wandering about in my field of vision.

I hit a ridiculously huge pothole hidden in a flooded Devon lane on Friday and got an instant front wheel puncture. That is 2 years on the trot that I have made the mistake of thinking that riding slowly through a brown swamp makes it safe. Not when the holes are 15 cm deep and have sharp edges!

View attachment 731529

I flagged down all the drivers approaching while I was putting my spare tube in. Some diverted when I told them how deep the holes on both sides of the road were. Others thanked me and drove through very slowly. Even so, the vehicles were juddering and clunking. One local said that he witnessed another driver try to go through at full speed that morning and wreck a front wheel! Apparently, the road has been like that for weeks due to a blocked drain.

A young female cyclist came along and I warned her that there was only a very narrow strip of tarmac in the centre of the road, with big holes either side. She aimed for the middle but did exactly what I'd done - slipped off into the depths, came to a dead stop, and toppled sideways. At least she didn't get a flat tyre and she wasn't hurt.

Anyway... fettling! When I got back I repaired the original tube. It had a vicious snakebite puncture. I wasn't happy with how long the 'bites' were but gave the repair a go anyway. I let the glue dry and then swapped the repaired tube back onto the wheel. I wanted to be sure that the repair would hold, rather than keeping the tube as a spare and discovering later that it didn't. And, sure enough, it did NOT hold! The tyre went flat very quickly. The patch had been stuck down adequately but one of the 'bites' had continued to rip open under pressure and had torn the patch too. Not worth messing about further, so the tube was scrapped after only 6 hours of use. I ordered 2 more spares which came today!

I have switched over to 32C tyres for my Devon bike. I had been running them at 4.5 bar F and 5.0 bar R for comfort but have now gone up to 5.2 bar F and 5.5 bar R for a bit more protection. The tyres are still pretty comfy and roll better. I may even add another 0.2-0.3 bar for tomorrow's ride to see how I get on.

More fettling... The bike has been making ticking noises which annoyed me. I decided that the cassette lock ring probably needed tightening. I also wanted to check and clean the cassette so I ordered a chain whip and cassette tool yesterday on overnight delivery which arrived this afternoon. I took the rear wheel into the garden and sorted it out in the sunshine. The cassette was filthy so I scrubbed that. The freehub too. I greased everywhere that looked like it needed it and put it all back together. The bike is now tick-free!

I also adjusted the rear derailleur and endstops. The 11-speed bike had become a 10-speed but has now regained its missing gear! The indexing is now spot on too.

Update to the update...

I just noticed that the Street View car went down that lane shortly after the road closure, ignoring the closure signs [LINK]. That gives us a really good view of just how big and sharp-edged those potholes (caverns!) were, though not showing how deep they were...

View attachment 736349

The road is open again now and I rode down there on Tuesday. The repair is the full width of the road and 4 or 5 metres in length!

The repair crew have done repairs to several massive potholed stretches in the surrounding lanes, but missed others.

 

[DCBassman]

sorry about the rant but I feel like im going to break my car.

I got my current car during the pandemic. I've spent its purchase price again on road-related tyre and suspension damage. MOT due next week, and there's definitely more to be fixed in this regard.

 

[SteveH80]

Enough whinging.
After 20 years of 'sweating the assets' the roads are knackered, £18b at last count. The fix is available but it's going to take time.
£7.3b in this parliament has been given to local authorities to start sorting it. Go hassle your local MP and Councillors, report problems to your coucil, be a nuisance.
Alternatively we could demand a tax cut and damn the potholes

https://maps.dft.gov.uk/local-road-maintenance-ratings-map/index.html

 

[FishFright]

If the potholes are fixed by the lowest tender then they'll be back next spring.