Driving home lastnight - on the motorway cruising at just shy of 70 as I was coming upto my junction. They have just laid a new surface there. The section of new tarmac is about 2 miles long. There was a sudden cloud burst and it turned the new section of tarmac into a river. Within about 15 seconds I saw 2 trucks slide off the road and down into the field on the left, a car spin in the outside lane and endup pointing backtowards the oncoming traffic. i touched the brakes to avaoid the car infront and I got nothing. The car aquaplaned off the dual carriage way, still doing about 45mph, passengers side wheel when up onto the grass and I managed to regain steering control and got back onto the carriage way!

11 crashes within 2 miles of road - cause :- oil out of new tarmac + rain = ice like conditions!

Got home stopped the car, surveyed the damage - udertray has been caught on something and some of the screws have broken. My tyres are down to about 3mm of tread, i'd hate to have been there if I had any less

Time for new tyres!

and new trousers.

Makes you wonder why roadworks don't cater for this phenomena...

:eek: Not fun! Sounds like you were very lucky.

Maybe the properties of new tarmac in wet conditions should be made more well-known?

I think I would have had more grip If I had driven on pure ice with slick tyres! I was physically shaken!!

I felt that when I tried driving at 4am during that real cold snap to JKM from Devon.... After a close call on some ice I just went home again! I tried getting back to sleep but just couldn't.

Crashed my D plate Polo S coupe in similar conditions into a stationary Nova (why the woman was stationary with views in all directions of the empty roundabout I couldnt say).

No visible damage to her car at the roadside, both my wings bent out, and bonnet creased. Her car was written off as I cracked her chassis the length of the car

All to the tune of a Tribe Called Quest. Can i.....? Yup, I did!

There's a full description of new road surface hazards in one of the police sites (Google). The Police found that the new road .(I think Derbyshire) was a problem when trying to replay the incident after a fatality. Signs would be good as instinct suggests that a new surface should be better than a worn one - but would you believe the signs?

The problem stems from how the surface is now laid. Traditionally they would lay the majority of the surface and then roll aggregate intto the surafce for the grip layer. Problem was however you ended up with loose chippinngs annd theey tend to get dislosdged a touch easy over time. So now they lay the surface complete with all the aggregate in, meanig there is binder around the wearing aggregate, hence until the road has been used a bit and the binder worn of the aggregate they can be a touch slippy.