gravel on road?

GwylimT

fannyadams wrote: »

there's a petition against councils doing this because it IS a HAZARD to two wheeled traffic.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/67408

If you're going too fast and being severe around corners/bends.

Buellguy

GwylimT wrote: »

If you're going too fast and being severe around corners/bends.

Erm, no. The problem comes from piles of gravel left in between the wheeltracks of the cars. If you'd ever hit one of those, however slowly, on a bike you would know just how dangerous they were

GwylimT

Buellguy wrote: »

Erm, no. The problem comes from piles of gravel left in between the wheeltracks of the cars. If you'd ever hit one of those, however slowly, on a bike you would know just how dangerous they were

They aren't hard to avoid even in the dark, I would hardly call them piles either, I've driven through them before on a straight and been perfectly fine, in the past I have only avoided them on bends.

Buellguy

GwylimT wrote: »

They aren't hard to avoid even in the dark, I would hardly call them piles either, I've driven through them before on a straight and been perfectly fine, in the past I have only avoided them on bends.

Driven or ridden?? If you don't think they are a danger to anyone on two wheels (motorised or foot powered) it's fairly obvious you ride neither

GwylimT

Buellguy wrote: »

Driven or ridden?? If you don't think they are a danger to anyone on two wheels (motorised or foot powered) it's fairly obvious you ride neither

Both, I've sadly been motorbike free for two years though.

OnanTheBarbarian

Not to mention the swathes of it that end up in the mouth of junctions long afterwards.

The sheriff's badge always tightens a little when you get caught on that when turning right into a junction and the bike dances sideways a little.

System

fannyadams wrote: »

there's a petition against councils doing this because it IS a HAZARD to two wheeled traffic.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/67408

So what do you propose as an alternative. There is a finite pot for road repairs and they are trying to patch up as much road as the pot will allow.

facade

!!!!!! wrote: »

So what do you propose as an alternative. There is a finite pot for road repairs and they are trying to patch up as much road as the pot will allow.

Doing the job properly on less roads
Then use the money they find for speedhumps to fill in the potholes in the rest.

Like most things today, the budget doesn't stretch to buying something that will last, but there is enough to do a cheap job every year, even though the total cost for continually replacing the cheap shoddy one exceeds that of the quality one that does last.

I ride a 'bike too, and it seems that as myself and Buellguy lack GwylimT's confidence riding on loose ballbearings that 66% of the motorbiking community probably do too.

Peater

^Exactly, it's all down to yearly budgets. It's a backwards way of doing things, but it keeps the network moving at least.

Freshly dressed roads are no fun on a push-bike either by the way. They make you lose your fillings.

Iceweasel

It's a cheapskate temporary method which barely last a year.

Spray on liquid tar, spread a layer of gravel chips then run away.

There are other costs not mentioned - such as having to re-do the white line markings after the dressing, on a yearly basis too.

No-one has yet mentioned chipped and broken windscreens caused by the folks in company cars and vans who don't seen to care about flying stones and don't slow down.

The UK is NOT a poor country - perhaps if we stopped pretending to be the world's policeman along with the USA and spending countless billions on foreign wars that will make no difference anyway, we could have a better quality of road here.

Perhaps a good idea would be to introduce a kind of vehicle orientated contribution system for the upkeep and expansion of the road network.

A good name for it might be something like 'Road-Tax' - I'm sure that most of us would be happy to pay a sum of money on an annual basis for such a worthwhile endeavour, if we were guaranteed the money would actually be spent on the road network.

But I suppose some politician might well propose abolishing it, in a few years, in order to use the money for other things.

But surely no government would be so stupid as to do that, would they?

Or would the public be so stupid as to accept that rip-off and continue calling it Road-Tax even 80 years after it was abolished and the money diverted?