Pothole in one!
A new government scheme is starting up to map the many potholes on our roads - good news?
Have you noticed how bumpy and potholed the roads are at the moment? It seems that while we were all locked down the pothole fairies were going round laughing with their magic kango hammers, going...one here and one here oh and how about another one here....?
Well perhaps this is some good news for road users, the government has launched an audit of the roads to map out all the potholes. They are going to be busy! It is the first ever pothole audit and is enlisting the aid of heavy road users like Uber, Deliveroo, Tesco and Ocado to spot and report back on pothole locations. The Department for Transport, who are initiating the review, are also working with Gaist a highway data and mapping company, and are using local highways authorities data too, to locate dangerous potholes.
Hole-y moly!
The purpose of the exercise is to create a fully comprehensive picture of where the worst and most dangerous potholes are located so that the DfT can decide where the need is greatest and where the available funds can be best spent.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said:
“I want our roads to be as safe as possible, so during the lockdown, we’ve resurfaced hundreds of miles of road. But now I want to go further by identifying critical potholes and ensuring these are fixed as quickly as possible.”
“We’re teaming up with delivery companies, who know the roads well, in order to map out where remaining potholes exist and then relentlessly target them with our record £2.5 billion pothole repair fund.”
Potholes are particularly dangerous for motorcyclists who may well come a cropper and come off their bike if they hit one, so this looks like a step in the right direction to deal with this road surface menace.
Comments:
10/09/20 - Try Herefordshire I thought I saw a rabbit in the road it turned out to be a donkey in a pothole
10/09/20 - Are they going to bomb them?
10/09/20 - Most of the roads we drive over today were designed and built by a generation of people who could not have possibly imagined the individual size and weight of vehicles and the collective volume of traffic we see nowadays - and its getting worse. No wonder the roads are crumbling. It will be fantastic to see an improvement but I won’t be holding my breath.
10/09/20 - Have you seen the method they're using, chuck a shovel full of tar then drive over it! Then they **** off and don't look back.
10/09/20 - Fixing potholes is a short term fix, so many of our roads require the sub base rebuilding because they’ve been degraded by heavy traffic. These quick fixes may look ok but it’s costing us taxpayers more in the long run because they will not last.
EN