ROADS

Drivers have been told to slow down on the A52 dual carriageway because the surface is not "fit for purpose". The road suffered frost damage in recent cold weather but officials have said the entire carriageway may not have been laid correctly.

The city council has said motorists should drive at 40mph instead of the usual 70mph to lessen problems and that it wanted to get the winter weather out of the way before starting major repairs. John Hansed, head of highways, said the surface laid 10 years ago was coming away.

He added, "It is not fit for purpose at the moment. We do have a programme to repair it, but not immediately. We will be going in, in about three or four weeks time, and we are currently talking to surfacing contractors to see that we get the best price to carry out the repair work. If we have any more bad weather in February then it might cause a bit more deterioration which we would like to catch when the repairs are carried out." He said short term repairs would cost in the region of £200,000 but complete resurfacing would be in the region of £750,000. (Source: BBC News, Feb/10)

Motorists face a postcode lottery of road quality due to the failure of local authorities to agree a definition of what exactly constitutes a pothole. When is a pothole not a pothole? It may sound a simple question, but councils up and down the country have failed to agree on an answer. More than two million potholes need fixing in Britain following the winter freeze, but a baffling array of official definitions regarding what exactly constitutes a pothole means that motorists and pedestrians face a postcode lottery of highway standards.

In Gloucestershire, a hole in a road must be the depth of a "golf ball" (1.6in) and the width of a "large dinner plate" (11.8in) before the county council will regard it as a pothole. Worcestershire county council will accept a smaller "dinner plate" width hole (7.9in) in surface area, while requiring the hole to be the depth of a "fist" (1.6in). To assist residents in Coventry the council has devised what it calls an "easy way to remember" what it deems the depth of a priority pothole, "a pound coin and a 1p coin side by side" (1.6in).

In Suffolk, roads officers agree with Gloucestershire that a serious pothole must be the width of a "large dinner plate" (11.8in), unless the defect is on a minor road, when it must be about the size of a "dustbin lid" (23.6in) to warrant urgent action. In Bath and North East Somerset a crack in the road only needs to be 1.2in deep before it counts as a pothole, whereas in Cheshire West and Chester inspectors are charged with identifying only holes deeper than 2in. In Hounslow, traffic officers will fix potholes on residential streets only if they meet "intervention levels" of 3in in depth.

Some councils' policies stipulate four or more different categories of priority depending on a pothole's depth and width. Nearly all assess potholes in roads in a different way from those on footpaths. Paul Watters, the head of public affairs at the AA, said, "It is a pain that there are all these differences. I hope that it is not a manifestation of budget issues, it may instead be a manifestation of priorities. There is a code of good practice which says anything that is 0.8in in depth needs investigating. But a pothole really is like a piece of art, what it looks like to one person may be something different for someone else, and so treated differently."

According to the Local Government Association (LGA) there is an £8 billion shortfall in highway budgets, meaning extra money is urgently needed to fix the potholes caused by the cold weather. But even if money was no object, some councils' red tape would stop officers dealing with smaller holes. Gloucestershire says that if holes are smaller than its strict criteria dictate, filling them in is pointless. By contrast, Herefordshire council aims "to record and treat all potholes, regardless of depth". Councils are legally responsible for maintaining roads and footpaths within their boundaries, except for trunk roads which are maintained by the Highways Agency.

A spokesman for the LGA said, "A diktat from central Government over what is and what is not a pothole would not help improve the roads. It would force council staff to go out on to the roads with tape measures when they could be getting on with the job in hand. Councils use common sense and if a pothole poses a significant risk to road users they will do their best to fix it as soon as possible." (Source: Sunday Telegraph, Mar/10)

Markeaton Island on the A38 has become "overgrown and ugly" as neither the Highways Agency or Derby City Council will pay for improvements. Residents and business owners claim the roundabout is turning into an eyesore. The Highways Agency, who own the island, said it has no money for cosmetic improvements.

In a statement, it said, "Unfortunately the HA does not have any budget for flower planting schemes or sculptures etc on our roundabouts. Our remit is to maintain our roundabouts to a safe and environmentally acceptable level by trimming vegetation and picking litter."

The city council said it was happy for the look of the roundabout to be improved but had been quoted £1,400 for every time work needed to be carried out. Discussions are continuing between the Highways Agency and Derby City Council to find a solution to the overgrown traffic island. When an Alvaston resident refused to tidy up his garden, the city council prosecuted him and he received a four-month prison sentence. Will the city council now prosecute the Highways Agency or would that present them with a more formidible opponent? (Source: BBC News, Jun/06)

Serious safety concerns about new road surfaces being laid across the UK have been uncovered in a BBC investigation. The materials, stone mastic asphalt, or SMA, are approved by the Highways Agency for trunk roads and motorways. File On 4 found the same surfaces are banned in Ireland on some roads because of fears about poor grip. The Department for Transport said just because roads require further investigation, "it doesn't necessarily mean they are unsafe". SMA surfacing systems are widely used because they are said to last a long time, are quick to lay and give a smooth, quiet ride.

But police crash investigators have become concerned because, in certain conditions, some do not offer much grip for up to two years until they have bedded in. Sergeant Jim Allen said he experienced grave difficulties when conducting routine skid tests in optimum conditions on a Derbyshire road newly laid with SMA. "It was a sunny day in August. I jumped on the brakes and the car just kept going and going. Instead of the scream of tyre on road and a cloud of smoke there was just a gentle hiss as I passed over the road, and I skidded far further than I ever expected to."

Tests carried out by the National Roads Authorities (NRA) in the Irish Republic raised questions about the materials' ability to provide enough friction for tyres at higher speeds. The NRA has decided to restrict its use to roads with a 30 mph speed limit, and has taken remedial action on other roads where they have put it down. "When we found the skid resistance to be doubtful we simply had to go and surface dress all those roads to make them safe again," said NRA spokesman Sean Davitt. "Basically, our attitude towards the material is that we still have to be fully convinced of its benefits."

In a statement, the Highways Agency said all new materials pass a rigorous testing procedure which includes examination of surface texture for skid resistance. But File On 4 found that skid resistance tests were conducted in the wet and on surfaces that were worn down, but that tests in dry conditions were overlooked. Significantly, critics of SMA say that slipperiness can be a problem on new, dry roads. The programme also reveals that one in five miles of existing main road are now potentially dangerous due to low skid resistance, according to the government's own most recent maintenance survey.

And the AA Motoring Trust warns that England's road network is broadly in the worst condition since records began in the 1970s. Spokesman Paul Watters says, "I think road surfaces are a hidden menace to road users and I think perhaps we don't know the half of it, to be honest with you. In London it's as many as a third of main roads that have skid resistance at a level that needs looking at. Clearly this is an alarm bell. There could be lives at risk."

In a statement, the Department for Transport said, "A number of factors would have to come together to make a road unsafe, including volumes of traffic, speeds and the nature of the road itself...Just because roads have reached a level requiring further investigation, it doesn't necessarily mean they are unsafe." The government would not accept that road repairs are in crisis, saying it was committed to spending more than £31bn over a 10-year period.

Motorists may be forced to switch on their headlights when driving in daylight under European proposals aimed at improving road safety. The European Commission wants all EU states to set a common date for making daytime running lights mandatory. It is also proposing that all new cars be fitted with lights that turn on automatically whenever the engine is started.

It claims that this will save between 1,200 and 2,000 lives a year across the EU, because cars will be more conspicuous to vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. Stephen Ladyman, the road safety minister, said that the move could result in more motorcyclists being killed. Motorcyclists tend to use their headlamps during the day to mark them out in traffic.

He said, “Because motorcycles use daytime running lights, they have greater visibility than they would do if everyone used such lights. Given that one of the most serious problems that we face in this country is to bring down sharply the stubborn rate of motorcyclist fatalities, we cannot afford to compromise an important safety concern for motorcyclists.”

The Government is also concerned that daytime running lights would increase fuel consumption and pollution. Motoring groups claim that fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions increase by 3% when drivers use dipped lights. The Commission claims that dedicated daytime running lights would increase fuel consumption by only 0.3% because the dedicated lights use separate bulbs that are less bright than headlights. (Source: Times Online, Oct/06)

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