Potholes got another victim

[ToeKnee]

Isn't that a snake in the grass?

Coiled to strike......

 

[johnsco]

In Leeds, we see millions being spent on cycle lanes on roads where you hardly see any cyclists.
Roads are reduced to one lane for bus lanes causing daily congestion.
Many of the main roads are disintegrating.
Anger and frustration everywhere.
I support bus lanes [- But not at the expense of stealing existing road space.
Good luck to cyclists ... I cycle myself.
But I never asked for millions to be spent reconfiguring every road junction and leaving an incomprehensible mess for drivers.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

 

[Gazwould]

Isn't that a snake in the grass?

On that note I've just noticed his two rusty eyes

 

[AMGeed]

In Leeds, we see millions being spent on cycle lanes on roads where you hardly see any cyclists.
Roads are reduced to one lane for bus lanes causing daily congestion.
Many of the main roads are disintegrating.
Anger and frustration everywhere.
I support bus lanes [- But not at the expense of stealing existing road space.
Good luck to cyclists ... I cycle myself.
But I never asked for millions to be spent reconfiguring every road junction and leaving an incomprehensible mess for drivers.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

The same is happening in Bournemouth/Poole and Christchurch thanks to a council who have borrowed £millions to fund this pet project. Local elections take place here on 5th May and hopefully this lot will get thrown out. (It's a majority Tory run council)
At least the Lib Dems are promising to address the dire pothole situation here. I know where my vote is going in May.

 

[ChrisEdu]

 

[TeddyRuxpin]

I wouldn’t quite call them an ‘artist’

Lost a tyre to a pothole a week or two ago… well more like a small cliff at a passing point I was forced into by a speeding truck… changed both front tyres so they’re matching… £300

Add speed bumps into the mix and driving is becoming quite a miserable experience. Unless you have an suv with air suspension perhaps

 

[ALFAitalia]

Driving ANY SUV is also a miserable experience!!!

 

[190]

If potholes were so easy to miss, if you're concentrating on the road, then why do so many cyclists and bike riders hit them??

Because they are driving/riding too close ?

For the most part and especially for the centre of the lane, you can only see the road surface as far ahead as the vehicle in front of you, therefore when the road is full of potholes you need to leave a bigger gap to the vehicle in front if you want to see them in time. This applies particular to motorcyclists who are likely to be in the centre of the lane and find a pot hole appearing from underneath the car in front.

The problem is most other road users can't understand why you might be leaving a reasonably large gap. We here should be more enlightened than that, so if you see someone hanging back from the car in font, the likely reason, is they are scanning the road surface ahead.

 

[Rigby]

Has anyone successfully claimed from their local council for pot hole damage to their alloys or suspension?

Yes, I managed to get a new tyre and a rim refurbed after I hit a pothole which split the sidewall, however, it took over three months of filling in forms and writing to the council's solicitors.
What helped was the tyre fitters and the rim refurbishers put a footnote on their invoices "Pothole impact damage"

 

[clk320x]

Driving ANY SUV is also a miserable experience!!!

even a Range Rover SVR? ML63? GLE63S? Urus?

 

[Red C220]

Third one so far this year, courtesy of Surrey CC. Another claim submitted.

They make the form filling purposely obtuse so people give up requiring service and MOT proof plus an original invoice for the tyre you're claiming for when bought new. As it happens I'm losing one so often that's easy to provide.

 

[BigJase88]

Best one i have done so far. Rim is slightly harder pill to swallow than a tyre. No damage to the tyre which is strange.

Also this was done on a water filled pothole with nowhere to go as a wagon was coming the other way. Cannot avoid them all no matter how hard you try!

 

[190]

Lets get real about this issue. It's unlikely that the pot holes are going to go away and almost certain that they will get worse before getting better. Other countries have similar problems with road maintenance so we are not alone in this and therefore not an isolated market from the car manufacturers point of view. That being the case we have situation that ought to begin to influence the design of cars in terms of their wheels and suspension settings in the same way that the traditional soft suspension of French cars was born out of the state of their roads. What we have instead as a response from the car manufacturers, is the exact opposite of what is needed. As road surfaces have deteriorated, suspension has become firmer and wheel sizes larger to a degree that the most extreme examples are clearly not fit for purpose. If something is not fit for purpose then it shouldn't come as a surprise that it can't fulfill the function of traversing our roads without being damaged. Nor should there be any expectation of sympathy when they do get damaged.

We can fairly lay the blame for pot holes on the councils that are responsible for road maintenance but even if they paid compensation for every wheel damaged, we know that would consume funds better employed in repairing the pot holes and only result in making the situation even worse. The reality is our road surfaces are dreadful and not going to get better. The only logical conclusion then is we need cars with tougher suspension and higher profile tyres otherwise we are going to be guilty of what Einstein described as insanity "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result"

So strong is the influence of form before function on car wheel sizes, I won't hold my breath in expectation of a change any time soon.

 

[SpikyMikey]

Lets get real about this issue. It's unlikely that the pot holes are going to go away and almost certain that they will get worse before getting better. Other countries have similar problems with road maintenance so we are not alone in this and therefore not an isolated market from the car manufacturers point of view. That being the case we have situation that ought to begin to influence the design of cars in terms of their wheels and suspension settings in the same way that the traditional soft suspension of French cars was born out of the state of their roads. What we have instead as a response from the car manufacturers, is the exact opposite of what is needed. As road surfaces have deteriorated, suspension has become firmer and wheel sizes larger to a degree that the most extreme examples are clearly not fit for purpose. If something is not fit for purpose then it shouldn't come as a surprise that it can't fulfill the function of traversing our roads without being damaged. Nor should there be any expectation of sympathy when they do get damaged.

We can fairly lay the blame for pot holes on the councils that are responsible for road maintenance but even if they paid compensation for every wheel damaged, we know that would consume funds better employed in repairing the pot holes and only result in making the situation even worse. The reality is our road surfaces are dreadful and not going to get better. The only logical conclusion then is we need cars with tougher suspension and higher profile tyres otherwise we are going to be guilty of what Einstein described as insanity "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result"

So strong is the influence of form before function on car wheel sizes, I won't hold my breath in expectation of a change any time soon.

Good point and definitely the case of "form over function" on on my wagon:
255/35/18 on an 8.5J rim on the back of a car that produces a tarmac shredding 158 bhp.
Looks good but totally unnecessary.

 

[Big Janner]

Around here, we are told that the roads are in 'Managed Decline'

Where necessary, speed limits are lowered to surprise to unwary.

 

[SpikyMikey]

On the way back from brekkie this morning the Tiguan in front of me almost took out an overtaking motorcycle as the driver suddenly swerved to avoid a moon crater sized pothole. OK you could argue that his situation awareness could have been sharper (luckily the biker's reactions were lightning fast), but it's a good example of how potentially dangerous these things are.