Money has been spent all round Doncaster. Roads have been narrowed to create lovely cycle paths. Miles of them with not a bicycle in sight using them. The roads? Absolutely buggered! No money!
I returned to biking nearly 3 years ago and the first shock was the state of the roads which in the car i had considered an annoyance but not really a danger. On the bike the danger became very apparent - we have potholes everywhere and also the edges of the roads falling away. The same potholes are still there 3 years later. The other danger is the grit and gravel on corners which never gets cleared, and there's more and more mud on the lanes which again never gets cleared.
There are many factors that cause road degradation. The amount of preventative maintenance, volume of traffic, weather patterns etc. but by far the biggest issue is that vehicles have been steadily getting larger and heavier. 30 years ago the only big vehicles on uk roads where commercial vans and lorries. In my neighbourhood almost every house has a massive 2+ ton SUV plonked on the driveway (and in many cases you can see huge dips on said driveway because of the weight) and local car parks are full of them. No surprise then that the local roads are absolutely terrible. Electric vehicles won’t solve anything as they are even heavier than their ICE counterparts. Couple that with cheap finance and there are a lot more people who previously wouldn’t have been able to afford a big car now driving around in one. People take car ownership as an essential and god given right, yet national highways research indicates that more than 40% of all car journeys are a mile or less. The other major effect is emissions and governments banning ICE vehicles - and us bikers, who contribute next to nothing to either road damage or emissions are tarred with the same brush. Do something about the endemic big car, lazy short journey attitude and life would be better for everyone.
You mean by encouraging more walking, cycling and motorcycle journeys as well a public transport use instead of car journeys? I agree! We need fewer cars on the roads, especially there very heavy modern ones 👍
Following on from your Southend on sea chat, it would appear a further section of the A13 has recently (the last 10 days or so) repaired a large section between Pitsea and Five Bells interchange, to be fair it’s been overdue for a couple of years and has been lethal. I’ve not ridden it yet (just in the car), but I hope they have also done something about the terrible humps in the road where the carriage ways meet, I’ve been fired out of the seat on a few bikes at normal 50 - 60 mph. Also, do these people understand that part of the danger with potholes, is all the material that made up the road surface that is now a pot hole is strewn around causing another hazard with gravel, as could be seen in your video. Keep up the good work! 👍
Should have asked the Southend councillor about the “Not The Southend Shakedown” event where he has closed a length of parking on the Seafront so motorbikes have reduced places to park, and asked him why the tried to cancell the event on 1st April 2024.
To be fair, the Government need to save money, so they can GIVE AWAY £11 BILLION pounds to other countries. And don't forget the odd £MILLION or two, for every disaster that comes our way. No money for the infrastructure, but plenty for other countries. We should all stop paying the road tax, that means every single Driver, Rider, Taxi driver , HGV Driver, and Bus company, every one of us. I know it'll never happen, but it would be a nice way of getting the point across. Our roads are a joke, always have been, always will be. More money for cycle lanes ( Not a Problem ) after all they pay nothing to go on the roads, but want everything, as long as other people pay for it.
Partly it is because of the extremely wet winter we have “enjoyed” as it’s hydraulic action of tyres passing through puddles that cause the issue in the first instance. If there’s a weakness, hydraulic action will swiftly find it. Add freezing conditions to the mix and you have a recipe for tarmaggedon. I note that the trend in my area has been towards “permanent” repairs seemingly using cold cure emulsion type tar macadam. This doesn’t seem to bond fully to the base substrate despite carefully poured pitch joints. I have seen ribbons of repair come completely out of location like carpet rolls with potentially lethal results. There needs to be a adhesive bonding of the new material to the below substrate. I suspect that the current significant inflation is also affecting how far their money stretches and oil prices are a significant factor in the price of tar macadam. Rising hourly rates for the crews to cover inflation will only exacerbate the inflation phenomenon sadly. My last visit to Scotland at the beginning of the year showed a significantly better picture barring landslides and washed away bridges!
Perhaps the problem also lies further up the money chain with how much senior management and administrators are paid. Cut the wage bill there ( three figure Salaries ) and you can pay a lot of boys on the black stuff!
Just back from the south of France, roads were perfect even at the highest points. The UK is an embarrassment, money for ridiculous cycle measures and endless speed and ULEZ cameras but nothing to improve the general maintenance and safety for the public. It’s in such a state everywhere and will only get worse.
Shropshire County council will close your complaint, without doing Anything to repair, on the basis that "it's part of our scheduled maintenance program". Over a year later it's still not repaired 😵
Interesting and thought provoking. In West Sussex, we have a wide range of potholes, some of which I’ve reported, with a temporary repair made within a few weeks, and I know I’m not the only person reporting them. I’ll have a keener eye on them in future and will try to make a point of reporting them with an image… let’s hope we can drive quicker response and not temporary repairs. 👍
I've seen plenty of unattended 'roadworks' which later vanish without any improvement in the road surface, also signage informing me of 'Roadworks starting here, lasting 6 weeks commencing 20th January' (or similar..) but I've seldom actually witnessed an actual improvement in the road surface that goes any further than a few hundred metres (and often a lot less..)
Voted with MAG, added citations and research to the arguments. Made a best effort to get the point across in a way they might be receptive to. On a separate note, in this weeks BMF news letter I read *"The BMF has called out the recent JD Sports advert depicting the inappropriate riding of motorcycles by young riders wearing casual shoes whilst performing stunts and wheelies against an urban backdrop"*, and I could not be more disappointed. We should be celebrating this new peaceful outlet for the youth, helping the sport to gain credibility, demanding safe areas to practice and supporting riders who risk everything just to explore the art of riding.
Dress it up as you like. It's the same old story Yes HS2 has been cancelled. And the money saved. So called saved...ever known a government save money..... To busy spending the saved money looking after the rubber boat invaders. Where has this so called saved money gone. Did they have it in the first place. Corruption..lies...and deception......And the latest idea from the police money grabbers..anybody driving ..riding .cycling for that matter weaving to avoid the trenches. Will be done for .....wait for it......Driving without due care and attention...You can't make this up
I travel extensively in Europe and cannot understand why nearly all of these other countries, some of which our government would have us believe are third world countries, have far better roads than we do. I wonder why?
In France it is not uncommon for a mayor to perform temporary pothole repairs. I've seen a local mayor getting a bucket of tar and shovel, from his hatchback. Impossible to imagine a British mayor getting out of the ceremonial Roller to patch up the road.
Some roads in my area (Northumberland) have dramatically improved. These roads have been repaired, totally resurfaced and brought up to a good standard. Unfortunately, at the same time a greater number of roads have deteriorates and become more dangerous. Potholes have become deeper, wider and longer. Overall I have witnessed a net deterioration.
I liked the interview reporting on a positive change. Let's look for improvements, not just the bad examples. The worst pothole I saw was in Naivasha, Kenya. It was shallow, only 3 feet deep, but was 50 feet long and 20 feet wide.
I visited a country that has worse weather than the uk. the roads were immaculate. oddly tar MacAdam is working better than where it was invented. So the tar doesnt like sticking to tar. it's not just staff...
It's not "road tax" it's vehicle excise duty (VED) on ownership of a vehicle based on its emissions. Perversely, the low emissions electric vehicles which are really heavy and cause loads of road damage and pot holes are exempt from VED...
@@NooBiker Yes, and CO2 is not a pollutant, but the life-blood of Planet Earth, it's a psyop, "Geoff buys cars", has information on Councils, putting up, traffic lights and no repairs, happening, to exaggerate congestion and pollution and distress. The WAR on motorists and all road users!
Driving over the Alps in to Italy extreme weather in winter, where were the pit holes??. British weather is warmer but wetter. Why doesn't road tax money go to road maintenance then we could have a proactive road repair.
Lancashire is an absolute disgrace, blocked drains everywhere you look along the roadsides, potholes all over the place, and massively deteriorating road surfaces revealing year upon year of resurfacing laying new over old, the roads of the UK must be 150mm higher than they were twenty years ago.
The roads in worcestershire are pretty good.... Lots of maintenance always being done.... You soon notice the difference when you travel to surrounding countries.....
I have absolutely zero expectations that the road surfaces in the UK will improve in the short or long term. I absolutely do expect the cost and inconvenience of operating a motor vehicle of any description to increase exponentially. I have come to these conclusions based on what I have seen and experienced over many many years.
We have all of our utilities beneath the road and those cowboys almost never properly reinstate the surface after digging it up. Potholes ensue all around those roadworks as time goes by. AFAIK the road reinstatement is supposed to be signed off by the local highways agency. If that is correct, it ain't happening.
Reported two separate poorly maintained and pothole ridden roads in Sonning and Charvil, on Fix My Street, one to Oxfordshire and the other to Wokingham Borough Council. Both were rejected as not being of a poor enough standard for immediate remedy, but weasel words followed this in each case. In central Reading a road that was resurfaced within the last 9 months with the addition of traffic calming pillows and double red lines, on a stretch of no more than 150 metres long, is now returned to its former state as the new surface was poorly laid over the old and is stripped off to an alarming degree.. The result of this is an adjacent office glass entrance door has been shattered by what appears to have been a loose stone propelled out of the pothole by a car wheel. I think that no sign of improvement can be assigned to all three roads and with the refusal to take seriously reported road damage I have no hope that the situation is heading in any positive direction. I would go further and say that dereliction of duty on this scale smacks of an agenda by councils to allow road conditions to further deteriorate, as a means to eradicate motorists from OUR roads.
Money has been spent all round Doncaster. Roads have been narrowed to create lovely cycle paths. Miles of them with not a bicycle in sight using them. The roads? Absolutely buggered! No money!
Same in Edinburgh :(
Same in Coventry
Nottingham ditto
I returned to biking nearly 3 years ago and the first shock was the state of the roads which in the car i had considered an annoyance but not really a danger. On the bike the danger became very apparent - we have potholes everywhere and also the edges of the roads falling away. The same potholes are still there 3 years later. The other danger is the grit and gravel on corners which never gets cleared, and there's more and more mud on the lanes which again never gets cleared.
There are many factors that cause road degradation. The amount of preventative maintenance, volume of traffic, weather patterns etc. but by far the biggest issue is that vehicles have been steadily getting larger and heavier. 30 years ago the only big vehicles on uk roads where commercial vans and lorries. In my neighbourhood almost every house has a massive 2+ ton SUV plonked on the driveway (and in many cases you can see huge dips on said driveway because of the weight) and local car parks are full of them. No surprise then that the local roads are absolutely terrible. Electric vehicles won’t solve anything as they are even heavier than their ICE counterparts. Couple that with cheap finance and there are a lot more people who previously wouldn’t have been able to afford a big car now driving around in one. People take car ownership as an essential and god given right, yet national highways research indicates that more than 40% of all car journeys are a mile or less. The other major effect is emissions and governments banning ICE vehicles - and us bikers, who contribute next to nothing to either road damage or emissions are tarred with the same brush. Do something about the endemic big car, lazy short journey attitude and life would be better for everyone.
Well said.
You mean by encouraging more walking, cycling and motorcycle journeys as well a public transport use instead of car journeys? I agree! We need fewer cars on the roads, especially there very heavy modern ones 👍
Why is there always more than enough money to erect speed cameras, bicycle lanes, speed bumps and speed limit signs but not enough to fix potholes?
Dogma of councils to eliminate cars
Well, if they used the extra income to fix potholes, like Southend uses its parking charges, its a win win.
What bloody good is a temporary repair??? Boggles my mind
Following on from your Southend on sea chat, it would appear a further section of the A13 has recently (the last 10 days or so) repaired a large section between Pitsea and Five Bells interchange, to be fair it’s been overdue for a couple of years and has been lethal. I’ve not ridden it yet (just in the car), but I hope they have also done something about the terrible humps in the road where the carriage ways meet, I’ve been fired out of the seat on a few bikes at normal 50 - 60 mph. Also, do these people understand that part of the danger with potholes, is all the material that made up the road surface that is now a pot hole is strewn around causing another hazard with gravel, as could be seen in your video. Keep up the good work! 👍
Should have asked the Southend councillor about the “Not The Southend Shakedown” event where he has closed a length of parking on the Seafront so motorbikes have reduced places to park, and asked him why the tried to cancell the event on 1st April 2024.
To be fair, the Government need to save money, so they can GIVE AWAY £11 BILLION pounds to other countries. And don't forget the odd £MILLION or two, for every disaster that comes our way. No money for the infrastructure, but plenty for other countries. We should all stop paying the road tax, that means every single Driver, Rider, Taxi driver , HGV Driver, and Bus company, every one of us. I know it'll never happen, but it would be a nice way of getting the point across. Our roads are a joke, always have been, always will be. More money for cycle lanes ( Not a Problem ) after all they pay nothing to go on the roads, but want everything, as long as other people pay for it.
Partly it is because of the extremely wet winter we have “enjoyed” as it’s hydraulic action of tyres passing through puddles that cause the issue in the first instance. If there’s a weakness, hydraulic action will swiftly find it. Add freezing conditions to the mix and you have a recipe for tarmaggedon.
I note that the trend in my area has been towards “permanent” repairs seemingly using cold cure emulsion type tar macadam. This doesn’t seem to bond fully to the base substrate despite carefully poured pitch joints. I have seen ribbons of repair come completely out of location like carpet rolls with potentially lethal results. There needs to be a adhesive bonding of the new material to the below substrate.
I suspect that the current significant inflation is also affecting how far their money stretches and oil prices are a significant factor in the price of tar macadam. Rising hourly rates for the crews to cover inflation will only exacerbate the inflation phenomenon sadly.
My last visit to Scotland at the beginning of the year showed a significantly better picture barring landslides and washed away bridges!
Perhaps the problem also lies further up the money chain with how much senior management and administrators are paid. Cut the wage bill there ( three figure Salaries ) and you can pay a lot of boys on the black stuff!
Just back from the south of France, roads were perfect even at the highest points. The UK is an embarrassment, money for ridiculous cycle measures and endless speed and ULEZ cameras but nothing to improve the general maintenance and safety for the public. It’s in such a state everywhere and will only get worse.
Shropshire County council will close your complaint, without doing Anything to repair, on the basis that "it's part of our scheduled maintenance program". Over a year later it's still not repaired 😵
Interesting and thought provoking.
In West Sussex, we have a wide range of potholes, some of which I’ve reported, with a temporary repair made within a few weeks, and I know I’m not the only person reporting them.
I’ll have a keener eye on them in future and will try to make a point of reporting them with an image… let’s hope we can drive quicker response and not temporary repairs. 👍
I've seen plenty of unattended 'roadworks' which later vanish without any improvement in the road surface, also signage informing me of 'Roadworks starting here, lasting 6 weeks commencing 20th January' (or similar..) but I've seldom actually witnessed an actual improvement in the road surface that goes any further than a few hundred metres (and often a lot less..)
Voted with MAG, added citations and research to the arguments. Made a best effort to get the point across in a way they might be receptive to.
On a separate note, in this weeks BMF news letter I read *"The BMF has called out the recent JD Sports advert depicting the inappropriate riding of motorcycles by young riders wearing casual shoes whilst performing stunts and wheelies against an urban backdrop"*, and I could not be more disappointed. We should be celebrating this new peaceful outlet for the youth, helping the sport to gain credibility, demanding safe areas to practice and supporting riders who risk everything just to explore the art of riding.
Dress it up as you like. It's the same old story Yes HS2 has been cancelled. And the money saved. So called saved...ever known a government save money..... To busy spending the saved money looking after the rubber boat invaders. Where has this so called saved money gone. Did they have it in the first place. Corruption..lies...and deception......And the latest idea from the police money grabbers..anybody driving ..riding .cycling for that matter weaving to avoid the trenches. Will be done for .....wait for it......Driving without due care and attention...You can't make this up
I travel extensively in Europe and cannot understand why nearly all of these other countries, some of which our government would have us believe are third world countries, have far better roads than we do. I wonder why?
I suspect that labour costs may come into the equation.
Because they dont have a tory goverment
@@steve00alt70they are all under the current uni party! The UK doesn’t want a road system because it sees no future need for one.
In France it is not uncommon for a mayor to perform temporary pothole repairs. I've seen a local mayor getting a bucket of tar and shovel, from his hatchback. Impossible to imagine a British mayor getting out of the ceremonial Roller to patch up the road.
Some roads in my area (Northumberland) have dramatically improved. These roads have been repaired, totally resurfaced and brought up to a good standard. Unfortunately, at the same time a greater number of roads have deteriorates and become more dangerous. Potholes have become deeper, wider and longer. Overall I have witnessed a net deterioration.
I liked the interview reporting on a positive change. Let's look for improvements, not just the bad examples. The worst pothole I saw was in Naivasha, Kenya. It was shallow, only 3 feet deep, but was 50 feet long and 20 feet wide.
Shovelling a litle tarmac into the hole and stamping it down is not a repair.
I visited a country that has worse weather than the uk. the roads were immaculate. oddly tar MacAdam is working better than where it was invented. So the tar doesnt like sticking to tar. it's not just staff...
WHY DO WE PAY ROAD TAX ??? AND WHY IS IT NOT SPENT ON THE ROADS ..
VED!
It's not "road tax" it's vehicle excise duty (VED) on ownership of a vehicle based on its emissions. Perversely, the low emissions electric vehicles which are really heavy and cause loads of road damage and pot holes are exempt from VED...
@@NooBiker Yes, and CO2 is not a pollutant, but the life-blood of Planet Earth, it's a psyop, "Geoff buys cars", has information on Councils, putting up, traffic lights and no repairs, happening, to exaggerate congestion and pollution and distress. The WAR on motorists and all road users!
Road tax hasn't been a thing since the 1930s. Income tax, beer and cigarette duty and everything else go into the general pot
Driving over the Alps in to Italy extreme weather in winter, where were the pit holes??. British weather is warmer but wetter. Why doesn't road tax money go to road maintenance then we could have a proactive road repair.
Lancashire is an absolute disgrace, blocked drains everywhere you look along the roadsides, potholes all over the place, and massively deteriorating road surfaces revealing year upon year of resurfacing laying new over old, the roads of the UK must be 150mm higher than they were twenty years ago.
That's so you can only the smell of your clothes after riding your bike through a huge river of shit infested sewage water.
But speed restriction mechanisms everywhere!
Money is certainly not the issue. Road tax generates billions. Corruption and misuse maybe, but not lack of.
Try interviewing Ashfield council all they do is ignore everything
The roads in worcestershire are pretty good.... Lots of maintenance always being done.... You soon notice the difference when you travel to surrounding countries.....
The councillor knows his onions!
I have absolutely zero expectations that the road surfaces in the UK will improve in the short or long term. I absolutely do expect the cost and inconvenience of operating a motor vehicle of any description to increase exponentially. I have come to these conclusions based on what I have seen and experienced over many many years.
We have all of our utilities beneath the road and those cowboys almost never properly reinstate the surface after digging it up. Potholes ensue all around those roadworks as time goes by. AFAIK the road reinstatement is supposed to be signed off by the local highways agency. If that is correct, it ain't happening.
Didn't the government use all the extra money for repairing the roads in the north of England to repair the roads in London?.
Just levelling up eh?....
Reported two separate poorly maintained and pothole ridden roads in Sonning and Charvil, on Fix My Street, one to Oxfordshire and the other to Wokingham Borough Council. Both were rejected as not being of a poor enough standard for immediate remedy, but weasel words followed this in each case. In central Reading a road that was resurfaced within the last 9 months with the addition of traffic calming pillows and double red lines, on a stretch of no more than 150 metres long, is now returned to its former state as the new surface was poorly laid over the old and is stripped off to an alarming degree.. The result of this is an adjacent office glass entrance door has been shattered by what appears to have been a loose stone propelled out of the pothole by a car wheel. I think that no sign of improvement can be assigned to all three roads and with the refusal to take seriously reported road damage I have no hope that the situation is heading in any positive direction. I would go further and say that dereliction of duty on this scale smacks of an agenda by councils to allow road conditions to further deteriorate, as a means to eradicate motorists from OUR roads.
My road look like it's been carpet bombed.
This guy seems to make some sense
This is what happens with over a decade of austerity, councils having to cut budgets year on year by government decree... you get what you vote for...