Cyclist urges Surrey County Council to repair road defect “before someone gets killed”

This is a very helpful site

http://www.fillthathole.org.uk/

I have seen many a hole filled using this

Bigdai100 wrote:

Too many of us, cyclist, pedestrians and motorist assume that Councils have dedicated teams, constantly inspecting the roads. They rely on people to report road defects and I have found Surrey to be quiet responsive. The repairs may well be crap but they they are repaired, badly, quite quickly

Reporting helps. But comparing what's on fillthat hole on the roads nr the gym I use (Thames Ditton) where there's numerous 8"+ wide, 1/2"+ deep sections of surface missing, they've lost the plot - reports are mainly feb2013, april2014. Tho' they *eventually* filled the 4-6" deep one at a nearby junction.

Meanwhile the road which runs alongside Send prison- not even as busy as most suburban roads -has sections of alternating new, and old top-dressed, tarmac, running in 50-100m sections. Dunno WTF they were up to there.

I've lived in/driven/ridden around N Surrey roads for the the last 24yrs, they've never been anything like as bad as they have in the last few - and there seems to be precious little evidence of them making any repairs that look like they'll have any longevity - it's just patches here and there.

JonD wrote:

Meanwhile the road which runs alongside Send prison- not even as busy as most suburban roads -has sections of alternating new, and old top-dressed, tarmac, running in 50-100m sections. Dunno WTF they were up to there.

The only reasons I have been able to postulate for that section of road being repaired in such a half-hearted way are extreme penny pinching (how expensive is tarmac?) or they were trying to prevent it becoming a rat run. Even with the surface as bad as it is, cars are zooming along there. At least it's rideable now, before it was torture.

A V Lowe, your post is a little misleading. The tolerances that you define are those that are applied to a contractor when laying a new surface or kerb. These are different from the maintenance standards that authorities apply to an ongoing surface. Over time of course, roads wear out. They change shape/deflect and they are disturbed by traffic, trench excavations and changes in subsoil moisture content, amongst other things. Highway authorities set specific standards for maintenance of these conditions, usually following national guidance set out in the Code of Practice "Well Maintained Highways" produced by the Dept for Transport. "Trips" that are defined as defects requiring prompt intervention are usually specified as 40mm deep in carriageways and 20mm deep in footways and cycleways. There are also specific tolerances for trench settlement which are set out in the New Roads and Street Works Act. These depend upon the width of trench of course but will always be greater then the 3mm and 6mm you refer to. The 6" hole that caused your fall would almost certainly be defined as an actionable defect. The test for liability would depend on whether the local authority could reasonably have been aware of the defect and could have reasonably been expected to attend to it. Incidentally, I happen to be a local authority highway engineer, member of my local cycle club and cycle several thousand miles per year.