Potholes: the cause

[marinyork]

How they form may be interesting but how fast they get repaired wil be more interesting.

As soon as I'm on the bike again (after the thaw) I'll get logging them here:

http://www.fillthathole.org.uk/hazards/report

then at least injured cyclists have a better chance of getting compensation!

My last effort was some days short of 3 months. It wasn't some minor cul-de-sac either it was a main road.

 

[Davidc]

My last effort was some days short of 3 months. It wasn't some minor cul-de-sac either it was a main road.

I'm pretty sure CTC report them fast so it's down to the authority which maintains the road.

Here it seems that the local authority (Taunton Deane) acts fast, Somerset CC is tolerable at a few weeks, but the trunk roads dealt with by the Highways Agency/Department of Transport can take months.

It's worth having a go at the maintainer if your bike is damaged (or you are for that matter!). I did get £25 out of Suffolk CC for repairing my front wheel in 1991.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I'm pretty sure CTC report them fast so it's down to the authority which maintains the road..

CTC do report them fast. Yesterday I reported the state of Links Rd by Jubilee Crescent in Coventry, this afternoon I had an E-Mail to say the report had been passed on to Coventry Council.

 

[BentMikey]

As far as I know the CTC http://www.fillthathole.org.uk website is automated - damage reports are stored and sent on directly to the council. Any delay in repairing is due to the council concerned, not the CTC.

 

[Bman]

Looks like freeze-thaw action at work - geography lessons aged 9 IIRC.

Exactly what I thought, confirmed by a brief glance at the diagram on the link in the OP.

 

[Cab]

While freeze-thaw will turn tiny cracks into bigger cracks, and theres nothing you can really do about that, it strikes me that what causes potholes to get very big very fast is vehicles. Once the surface is damaged, the rate of decay on a busy road is immensely fast, especially on roads with a lot of heavy vehicles (more so where they're turning).

As ever, the problem on our roads is too many vehicles.

 

[Norm]

While freeze-thaw will turn tiny cracks into bigger cracks, and theres nothing you can really do about that, it strikes me that what causes potholes to get very big very fast is vehicles.

Hmm.... maybe as a generalisation but I've got a damage claim going through at the moment from a pothole which was approximately 2' long, 12" wide and up to 8" deep. This appeared in 12 hours on a rural road in Burnham Beeches which gets (comparatively) very little traffic.

The only way I think that could have appeared like that would be for the substructure to have been freeze/thaw damaged and the whole thing to have given way when the surface cracked. There's no way that could have been vehicular as, having got that big over 12 hours, it didn't change in size at all over the next 2 days.

 

[Davidc]

CTC do report them fast. Yesterday I reported the state of Links Rd by Jubilee Crescent in Coventry, this afternoon I had an E-Mail to say the report had been passed on to Coventry Council.

They do! And I'm going to praise the local authority here.

I met a big pothole on Tuesday - in the car because of conditions - and reported it via CTC, along with a load more in the same stretch of road.

The CTC email was in the collection I picked up this morning.

Went up that road again today, this time by bike, and saw that most of the worst potholes on that stretch of road are marked up in paint ready for the repair crew.

If the local authority responded to the complaint the speed is amazing. If not it's still amazing, as the holes have only been there for at most a week.

Have to see now how long 'tis until they're repaired.

 

[GrasB]

Well the BBC has been quick to come up with an in-depth explanation as to why the new spate of potholes have appeared:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8453969.stm
Fair enough. But I have a different theory. It is that the road - paradoxically - overheats when someone gets stuck in the snow and spins their wheel uselessly for minutes at a time. Overheating means the tar melts - and - pothole! Does this sound plausible to you - as an alternative?

Not so silly but way off the mark; on dry, hot tarmac with slicks, which get up to temps that road tyres can only dream of while maintaining any of integrity, you'll make a rather nasty patch of textured tarmac with a sustained burnout on one spot & basically taking out the tyre. Certainly something to avoid but nothing close to a pot-hole. On icy roads with super hard rubber it'll do far less damage & will be lubricated by the water so not really much of a chance.

Cab, thing is lots of tiny cracks doing this over & over quickly can get very deep into the surface & break it apart from the inside.

 

[Arch]

Have to see now how long 'tis until they're repaired.

Indeed. We should perhaps run a book on the longest lived bits of spray paint surrounding repairs-to-be....

I've seen some sit there a long time...

 

[marinyork]

Or how many regenerations the spray paint goes through?

 

[ComedyPilot]

Water seeps into cracks in the road, freezes, defrosts, road surface becomes damaged, then vehicles churn it up.

simples

[meerkat screech]

 

[summerdays]

Then, when you contact them (I always do it with the online fault reporting forms) use the language of their criteria, be specific about the size and mention that it's dangerous. If your report ticks the right boxes then they're obliged to respond in the appropriate timescales. This will at least get them out, and if you're telling the truth should also get it repaired quickly.

When I've reported them - I've included things such as "in the path that a cyclist would take"

Can someone tell me how they cope in Europe where they must get far greater extremes of temperature. Do they get the same level of pot holes appear? If not - why not.

 

[jimboalee]

Cheap materials.

How do the Canadians and Scands surface their roads?

Credit where credit's due though. Airstrip surface is ripped up by Airplane undercart bumping down.

A car doing a burnout on tarmac simply leaves rubber on the road surface. The tarmac is not heated enough to melt.

 

[Davidc]

I have to report that the pothole I referred to above - has been mended.

Off to pour myslf a stiff drink to help with recovery from shock !!!!!!!