Gravel, gravel everywhere

[Usher]

They resurfaced our lane in a rural area, it's narrows to passing places in parts, it was lovely and smooth and cars went past silently. The six months later we see signs saying an upcoming diversion for road surfacing and we couldn't understand why. And then they started pouring on tar and lorry loads of grey stone chippings and destroyed the quietness of the road, loose chippings are still everywhere 12 months later. Where the lane joins a main road there are no chippings, a complete waste of taxpayers money.

 

[Conscript]

Everything the council does, has to be done at the lowest possible cost. Even if it means more expensive in the long run.
If you have two contracts, one asking for £50k and one asking for £100k but guarantee the job will last for years....they will pick the £50k one.

This is not universally true. I used to work in estimating for a highways contractor, often tendering for work with local authorities.
Tenders were judged on price and quality, and whilst price was largely the majority deciding factor, quality was often a significant portion of the assessment - sometimes as much as 40% of the overall tender was graded on quality. You had to prove that you as a contractor had the ability and experience necessary for your workmanship to meet the requirements of the specification for whatever project you were tendering for.

If you tendered for a "term maintenance" contract (ie, to be the contractor in charge of highway upkeep for a specific authority for an amount of time), then it's in your best interests to ensure your workmanship and materials are up to scratch, otherwise when the contract is up for re-tendering, you might well find yourself losing it.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

I pay a tax which allows me to use my vehicle on the road, doesn't really matter what it's called

as for them also being motorists and thus paying tax, if I have 2 vehicles I pay the tax twice

Even if they were zero emission vehicles?

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Cyclists and horse riders should be banned from using roads. Especially cyclists!

Roads were built for cyclists, not cars. Cars should be banned from roads.

https://roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/

 

[ubersonic]

Roads were built for cyclists, not cars.

Firstly, the person you're arguing with was clearly joking.

Secondly, tarmacked/concrete roads were actually specifically built for motor vehicles (as cobbled roads caused too much vibration at the speeds they were becoming capable of reaching).

 

[Raikiri]

that's exactly what it does, if I pay it I can use my car on the road, if I don't pay it then I can't

Except it's not though, is it Rotty?

You could just as easily buy Tesla and not pay anything. It doesn't affect the persons right to use the road, but the vehcles based on their emissions.

Which is why it's not a road tax, and why you owning a higher polluting vehcle doesn't give you more right to the road even though you pay more.

 

[Zefan]

Horse Boxing Stance

I just wanted to express my love for this criminally underappreciated post.

 

[Diddums]

Hahaha, this is epic

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

Which recurring forum threads would prevail in the following short documentary I will be writing and producing:

1. Plane on a treadmill
2. 0.999r=1
3. Car owners pay road tax

Please send your answers to OH MY GOD NOBODY CARES STOP TALKING ABOUT IT WHAT IS ACTUALLY WRONG WITH YOU

 

[RxR]

Which recurring forum threads would prevail in the following short documentary I will be writing and producing:

1. Plane on a treadmill
2. 0.999r=1
3. Car owners pay road tax

Please send your answers to OH MY GOD NOBODY CARES STOP TALKING ABOUT IT WHAT IS ACTUALLY WRONG WITH YOU

'Who need ask d'oth err.'

 

[FoxEye]

It's *** lethal as my former teenage self on a 50cc motorbike will tell you.

The top layer of gravel isn't in any way bonded to the tarmac, so you try to go around a corner and you lose the bike out from underneath you. Followed by a losing skin and smashing a wing mirror. Yes, even 50cc trail bikes can have wing mirrors

 

[Rotty]

Even if they were zero emission vehicles?

I think that situation is about to change

 

[Rotty]

Except it's not though, is it Rotty?

You could just as easily buy Tesla and not pay anything..

I'm not that gullible though

 

[Basher]

I think that situation is about to change

But it doesn't change the point. VED is a tax on cars, not roads. A cyclist (assuming they're paying council tax) has just as much right as you to complain about road condition.

 

[vanpeebles]

I just wanted to express my love for this criminally underappreciated post.

There is an old kung fu film with horse boxing style in it

 

[Shadowness]

I've skipped all the idiots commenting about road tax (assuming they were serious, but as a cyclist there are lots of ignorant motorists who still believe this). Only took 4 posts to start!

Yes this is absolutely shambolic! So many roads near me that weren't actually that bad have been dug up and turned into rally stages. It's shameful in this country frankly.

 

[Shadowness]

Everything the council does, has to be done at the lowest possible cost.

This baffles me too!

So many roads look like patch work quilts! If they just did it properly it would save money and time!!

And the quality of the 'repairs' are shocking! They start cracking up within days too!!

 

[glenimp617]

This baffles me too!

So many roads look like patch work quilts! If they just did it properly it would save money and time!!

And the quality of the 'repairs' are shocking! They start cracking up within days too!!

I can't speak for all councils, but ours is shockingly bad. I mean they are really quite terrible.
One thing I have learnt, is that there is no such thing as common sense. There are procedures (which can either be the correct ones, or not), which are then blindly followed without question.

Central government aren't helping, but the blame doesn't always come from them....the local councils are poorly run.

We've had major roadworks in our city for the past five years, which have either made little difference, zero difference, or actually made things worse. The classic, which I'm sure runs across the entire country, is when they improve the roads with the excuse that journey times will be reduced and to ease congestion.....only to then, literally months after completetion, award a builder the contract for 5,000 new homes lol (which they'll then tell BT/Openreach to add capacity for 5,000 new homes (BT will add in capacity for 8,000).......then the builder builds 10,000 homes haha (true story).

 

[pastymuncher]

Our council isn't even top dressing our roads. They decided that as they were in financial difficulties a couple of years ago that they would let our roads go into a "managed" decline. Well nothing was managed at all and the roads have gone over a cliff edge needing tens of millions to make them good again. We have ruts so deep on some of the roads that you can't get out of them and they are very dangerous. They are caused by the large number of lorries we have around here due to the distillieries and logging (legalised vandalism). It's even on fast A roads. Other roads are crumbling and just falling apart within a couple of feet of the edges, again mainly due to lorries.

 

[Edinho]

I think a lot of it comes down to the quality of the contractors.

Get some gypo contractors who throw down tar then throw down chippings and leg it. Then you get others that do it properly and remove the loose chips.