I think you guys need to understand the concept of surface dressing a bit???

 

It's not about providing a smooth road without potholes or cracks / deformities - it's about providing skidding resistance and grip when finished.

 

Often a road can be structurally fine and free of faults but can have become 'polished' or have it's grip reduced through infill off the surface texture by debris etc.  A quick and simple solution to this is to surface dess with tar and a high polished stone value aggregate.  THis retains the structure of the road but reintroduces the skidding resistance.

 

Unfortunately (and this is the downside!) most highways authorities either don't specify the work correctly (proper materials spec with resistance to rutting and heat / high PSV aggregate washed and free of dust / proper application of materials / rolling in of aggregate / post-rolling sweeping) or allow the contractor involved to get away with doing it on the cheap.  So they get poor specification tar, chippings that don't stick, chippings just spread over the top and not rolled in, lots of chipping debris, subsequently blocked drainage, poor longevity etc...   The list goes on!

 

It is a solution that when used properly can give good results but has a very poor reputation and public perception precisely because  of bad spec and workmanship - leading to all the problems you mention above.

Its still ****

I think you guys need to understand the concept of surface dressing a bit???

 

It's not about providing a smooth road without potholes or cracks / deformities - it's about providing skidding resistance and grip when finished.

 

Often a road can be structurally fine and free of faults but can have become 'polished' or have it's grip reduced through infill off the surface texture by debris etc.  A quick and simple solution to this is to surface dess with tar and a high polished stone value aggregate.  THis retains the structure of the road but reintroduces the skidding resistance.

 

Unfortunately (and this is the downside!) most highways authorities either don't specify the work correctly (proper materials spec with resistance to rutting and heat / high PSV aggregate washed and free of dust / proper application of materials / rolling in of aggregate / post-rolling sweeping) or allow the contractor involved to get away with doing it on the cheap.  So they get poor specification tar, chippings that don't stick, chippings just spread over the top and not rolled in, lots of chipping debris, subsequently blocked drainage, poor longevity etc...   The list goes on!

 

It is a solution that when used properly can give good results but has a very poor reputation and public perception precisely because  of bad spec and workmanship - leading to all the problems you mention above.

 

 

Well said - it's still done to a poor standard in most of the country though

Absolutely hate the chippings "repairs". Purely a cheap "fix" to a problem that is often not there. Lasts all of 5 minutes before the surface is trashed again. Drives me mad when I see them do this to a beautiful stretch of smooth Tarmac (that was already perfectly grippy etc). :-(

They did this a month ago on the main road at the end of my street, a few weeks later it was really hot and where the buses had been running there was just a black sicky mess and all the stones seemed to have gone. Past the turning circle for the buses and where people park along one side it was fine.

Didnt realise you were Indian Fubs... when did you make the transition? 

 

Erm, that's not indian music...

I think you guys need to understand the concept of surface dressing a bit???

 

It's not about providing a smooth road without potholes or cracks / deformities - it's about providing skidding resistance and grip when finished.

 

Often a road can be structurally fine and free of faults but can have become 'polished' or have it's grip reduced through infill off the surface texture by debris etc.  A quick and simple solution to this is to surface dess with tar and a high polished stone value aggregate.  THis retains the structure of the road but reintroduces the skidding resistance.

 

Unfortunately (and this is the downside!) most highways authorities either don't specify the work correctly (proper materials spec with resistance to rutting and heat / high PSV aggregate washed and free of dust / proper application of materials / rolling in of aggregate / post-rolling sweeping) or allow the contractor involved to get away with doing it on the cheap.  So they get poor specification tar, chippings that don't stick, chippings just spread over the top and not rolled in, lots of chipping debris, subsequently blocked drainage, poor longevity etc...   The list goes on!

 

It is a solution that when used properly can give good results but has a very poor reputation and public perception precisely because  of bad spec and workmanship - leading to all the problems you mention above.

 

 

It's still a cheap and short-lived fix to any issues over grip.

Never, NEVER, seen it done properly and hence without attendant problems in over 45 years with a licence. The authorities just won't pay nor make sure it's done to an acceptable HIGH standard as determined by users - not a council desk pilot in a hi-viz vest - in the weeks afterwards.

 

Oh, and I've seen it done to a stretch of non-slip road under a year old.

 

Other and better road surfaces are available.

I think you guys need to understand the concept of surface dressing a bit???

 

It's not about providing a smooth road without potholes or cracks / deformities - it's about providing skidding resistance and grip when finished.

 

 

Oh I understand alright,

 

It's a poorly designed, poorly implemented soloution to a problem that IMO does not exist.

I've sat in stand still traffic on an A road with a tractor in front of me no trailer or anything, just the tractor itself and on a hot summers day it slowly moves towards the ditch following the camber of the road as it rides the molten 1 year old stone and chippings surface leaving big streaks of tar. Then the most common one I get is roads with lanes defined in them on either side where the traffic passes over leaving black lines of just tar/bitumen where it's again in the summer been softened and all chippings have sank/been pushed aside and it's just a slick surface which in the rain is lethal! 

 

Ours tends to be done to a very poor standard as such and roads with pot holes etc are not repaired first, leaving shallow gravel pits in the roads for weeks and once cleared the passing traffic strips the surface dressing from around these as tyres pass over it hitting the edges of the newly camouflaged pot holes. The vast majority of this work in NI is carried out entirely in house, we don't trust councils with anything more than emptying the bins and all road matters are centrally controlled by a single government department 'Transport NI' (recently renamed from Roads Service). The staff planning, authorising, carrying out and approving the sign off are all one and the same department and every person in the process from top to the guy spinning the 19'30's circular stop sign for traffic control are civil servants. 

 

This is what 90% of the roads look like with surface dressing, then they just put more on top as is in a deteriorated state and is adheres differently to each little bit of road and comes off in weeks again leaving the road more and more rutted. Listen to the bike shuddering over it when moving at start and end.... Road is pretty clean, just wet, the shinny bits are just smooth bitumen on the surface. Back wheel spins up under gentle acceleration at end.. Total joke. We only have 5 roads that are salted in the county during winter for last 15 years odd since they stopped doing all other roads. They used to have a policy of dumping a pile of salt every half mile on B roads so people could ski over to it when stuck etc, but even that's stopped for a good 8 years. We had a new dual carraigeway adjoining end of our by far longest motorway (M1 36 miles) and they never thought to plan for gritting it, the first winter it was open first frost, covered in sheet ice, dozens of accidents in early hours shut the entire thing down, followed by passing the blame games. 

 

They dont even seem to roll it? They seem to rely on cars do that for them and just leave an inch thick of gravel on there.

Then it wears through in no time on busy routes.

So regardless of what its 'supposed' to do, its pointless.

 

Agree re the rolling in - as I said earlier the contractors often don't do this and get away with it making it's longevity poor and the initial surface dangerous

 

Generally it doesn't actually wear through - what happens is the aggregate plucks out or sinks in - both caused by bad laying or a wrong specification

 

Which I guess I can agree makes it pointless...   but it shouldn't be as it does actually serve a purpose and works when done correctly!

 

Its still ****

 

Noted but as I said earlier it can work properly and not be **** if done right

 

Well said - it's still done to a poor standard in most of the country though

 

True - but unfortunately you only have the local highway authority and the relevant contractors to blame for that...

 

It's still a cheap and short-lived fix to any issues over grip.

Never, NEVER, seen it done properly and hence without attendant problems in over 45 years with a licence. The authorities just won't pay nor make sure it's done to an acceptable HIGH standard as determined by users - not a council desk pilot in a hi-viz vest - in the weeks afterwards.

 

Oh, and I've seen it done to a stretch of non-slip road under a year old.

 

Other and better road surfaces are available.

 

It's not 'that' cheap but is much cheaper than a full reconstruction or a plane-off and re-surface with something like Stone Mastic Asphalt...

 

You may well have seen it done on a 1 year old piece of road...   if the 1 year old surface didn't meet it's required skidding resistance when tested...   although arguably in that case it should have been planed off and re-laid.

 

And yes other, better, surfaces are available but they tend to be hellishly more expensive and cause a lot more disruption so, if the road "structure" is sound and it is done properly it can be a 'best value' alternative in these financially constrained times

 

Oh I understand alright,

 

It's a poorly designed, poorly implemented soloution to a problem that IMO does not exist.

 

As I said before if it is done right it does work and is durable - I'm assuming that where you think it is a problem that doesn't exist you've seen the skid resistance test results to demonstrate it??

 

========

 

Look - I'm not trying to defend the shoddy design and crappy practices that take place but that's what they are - surface dressing is a solution that can and does work and is good value if done right...

I've sat in stand still traffic on an A road with a tractor in front of me no trailer or anything, just the tractor itself and on a hot summers day it slowly moves towards the ditch following the camber of the road as it rides the molten 1 year old stone and chippings surface leaving big streaks of tar. Then the most common one I get is roads with lanes defined in them on either side where the traffic passes over leaving black lines of just tar/bitumen where it's again in the summer been softened and all chippings have sank/been pushed aside and it's just a slick surface which in the rain is lethal! 

 

Ours tends to be done to a very poor standard as such and roads with pot holes etc are not repaired first, leaving shallow gravel pits in the roads for weeks and once cleared the passing traffic strips the surface dressing from around these as tyres pass over it hitting the edges of the newly camouflaged pot holes. The vast majority of this work in NI is carried out entirely in house, we don't trust councils with anything more than emptying the bins and all road matters are centrally controlled by a single government department 'Transport NI' (recently renamed from Roads Service). The staff planning, authorising, carrying out and approving the sign off are all one and the same department and every person in the process from top to the guy spinning the 19'30's circular stop sign for traffic control are civil servants. 

 

This is what 90% of the roads look like with surface dressing, then they just put more on top as is in a deteriorated state and is adheres differently to each little bit of road and comes off in weeks again leaving the road more and more rutted. Listen to the bike shuddering over it when moving at start and end.... Road is pretty clean, just wet, the shinny bits are just smooth bitumen on the surface. Back wheel spins up under gentle acceleration at end.. Total joke. We only have 5 roads that are salted in the county during winter for last 15 years odd since they stopped doing all other roads. They used to have a policy of dumping a pile of salt every half mile on B roads so people could ski over to it when stuck etc, but even that's stopped for a good 8 years. We had a new dual carraigeway adjoining end of our by far longest motorway (M1 36 miles) and they never thought to plan for gritting it, the first winter it was open first frost, covered in sheet ice, dozens of accidents in early hours shut the entire thing down, followed by passing the blame games. 

 

 

Re these points...

 

1st Para is entirely down to incorrect specification and materials that don't have sufficient thermal resistance properties...

 

2nd Para is incorrect use of surface dressing - it should only really be used to increase skid resistance where the existing road surface is structurally sound.  If it is covered in potholes and cracked then it's not a suitable solution and is a waste of money on the part of TNI - maybe it's a case of 'jobs for the boys'???

 

3rd Para is incorrect use of surface dressing, poor specification and bad application - all of which I've experienced first hand in NI given I have family there...   (although I would say that generally NI roads are fantastic in comparison to those where I live...)

Signed it. 

 

I dont think enough others have though haha. 

This needs advertising.

I knew nothing about it.

 

Link please to help try and stop this cheap and nasty vile annual car damaging fiasco.

skomaz, you're coming acoss as someone with a vested interest, and nothing wrong with that.

 

Can you tell us what proportion of jobs you've seen have been done correctly? (I don't just mean those you might have had a professional interest in, if such exists).

 

The bottom line is that drivers don't like it, no-one (on here, certainly) has experience of it done properly, and the overwhelming impression is that it's a cheap, in every sense, fix.

 

You yourself have pointed out the problems of specification, materials, application. To the layman, it's a straightforward procedure - and certainly compared with other methods of repair. One doesn't need to be a civil engineer to see that. So why does it go wrong so many times, unless there's a fundamental flaw in the process that can in part be addressed by making sure there are no loose pieces of stone before traffic is allowed to drive on it?

This needs advertising.

I knew nothing about it.

 

Link please to help try and stop this cheap and nasty vile annual car damaging fiasco.

 

the links a little further down mate. 

 

Here it is again

 

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/127577

skomaz, you're coming acoss as someone with a vested interest, and nothing wrong with that.

 

Can you tell us what proportion of jobs you've seen have been done correctly? (I don't just mean those you might have had a professional interest in, if such exists).

 

The bottom line is that drivers don't like it, no-one (on here, certainly) has experience of it done properly, and the overwhelming impression is that it's a cheap, in every sense, fix.

 

You yourself have pointed out the problems of specification, materials, application. To the layman, it's a straightforward procedure - and certainly compared with other methods of repair. One doesn't need to be a civil engineer to see that. So why does it go wrong so many times, unless there's a fundamental flaw in the process that can in part be addressed by making sure there are no loose pieces of stone before traffic is allowed to drive on it?

 

Maybe I do have a vested interest - I'm a Civil Engineering Consultant with 26 years experience in highways and transport planning amongst other things...   but really I'm just trying to present a balanced view??

 

I myself don't like it when it is done badly - so I'm with you and everyone else on here in that respect, especially as it gives myself and others in the industry a bad name!!

 

The fundamental flaw is lack of knowledge really of those designing, specifying and carrying out the works!   And probably a lack of interest in doing it right...   I see a lot of people who can't be bothered to do it right and just repeat what has been done before and hence get the same crappy results...   as well as corner cutting because there isn't the money available to do it right...

 

Proportion of jobs I've seen done right - if I'm honest not many precisely because of the aforementioned reasons but it shouldn't be that way...

 

So like I said - only a vested interest and making a point because it annoys me as much as it does others!

3rd Para is incorrect use of surface dressing, poor specification and bad application - all of which I've experienced first hand in NI given I have family there...   (although I would say that generally NI roads are fantastic in comparison to those where I live...)

Never worry about my points, cheers for answering them though, I am not a fan of the job done poorly either and take every opportunity to rant about it when it pops up! You need to come to my part of NI to experience the true mania though, Sheffield if your location is correct is somewhere that does have some shoddy roads and I lived not far from it and worked in and out of it at a stage, but NI has a fairly consistent drop in infrastructural investment the further west and more so south-west you go from it's epicentre of Belfast! In the early 60's we had one of the finest road networks in the world ironically :( Here as it is now where I live we have the highest road death rate in the UK 8 times the average by head of population in comparison to the rate in GB. We don't get bypasses or dual carriageways (not 1 in the region) and it has a fairly bad knock on effect. We have vast vast rural areas where road signage was removed during WWII and have never been replaced.   

 

skomaz, you're coming acoss as someone with a vested interest, and nothing wrong with that.

 

Can you tell us what proportion of jobs you've seen have been done correctly? (I don't just mean those you might have had a professional interest in, if such exists).

 

The bottom line is that drivers don't like it, no-one (on here, certainly) has experience of it done properly, and the overwhelming impression is that it's a cheap, in every sense, fix.

 

You yourself have pointed out the problems of specification, materials, application. To the layman, it's a straightforward procedure - and certainly compared with other methods of repair. One doesn't need to be a civil engineer to see that. So why does it go wrong so many times, unless there's a fundamental flaw in the process that can in part be addressed by making sure there are no loose pieces of stone before traffic is allowed to drive on it?

I didn't read it as a promotion of just a balanced input personally. I have seen it done to a great standard in other countries but never anywhere in the UK. Having lived in the Netherlands for a few years it made it all the worse seeing how much better they are at laying any surface of carriageway with harsher winters and hotter summers. I could count the number of actual pot holes I had to deal with in that time there with my testicles and I can only put it down to a much higher quality of materials and workmanship. Roadworks were always quicker processes with people who evidently were not playing with themselves on their 25th break and done with as much consideration to minimise traffic disruption as possible. Seen places lay surfaces in the same sort of way, roll, sweep, roll and put down some other liquid on top to effectively seal it all and roll and seal it again. Makes for a real grippy surface and not one i'd fancy sliding down off a bike (cheese grater ), but good quality work. 

The thing that bugs me with the usage of it in my area mainly is that it's as we all seem to have experienced, done to a consistently poor standard. There are set guidelines and regulations that are undoubtedly not being followed. Ref my pics above, I am so peeved about that one and the responsible authorities response to my pointing out the state they left road in with emergency services condemnation of the scene, giving me a basically canned 'so sue us' response rather than a thank you for drawing this to our attention we will be investigating this, good luck with learning to walk again in 6 or 7 months time, that I am about £15K and several years of long in depth calculated legal action against them and just in a bid to make it a drain on their resources to deal with it. Cost me more in lost earnings during the time I was off work ffs! Had they just acknowledged my simple letter, wasn't attributing any liability or seeking any admition, just reporting my peeved concerns via email one night a few days after with no sleep. They failed to meet the high courts deadline to submit their defence but I kept it open just to make them work even though realistically that was my best chance at winning against the state on this matter.

 

Years ago when I was growing up and used to cycle everywhere it would be almost impossible to cycle on the roads around where I lived with the sheer depth of the stuff they would leave on at one time and doing the road outside our house one week day in summer with windows left open we came home to find 3 hamsters all dead in their cages and such a thick strong smell of whatever they used to use then. A mile or so from out house 2 days after that time of the year when they put a load down on a 3 mile stretch of road a neighbour was killed on his bike, on a straight stretch of road lined with big trees by hitting one square on, wasn't big speed, he just lost the front wheel and snapped his neck in the impact. It was a pointless waste for the sake of a half assed job at spilling a pile of gravel over a main road and walking away from it to let the public take their chances on it. Medieval, outdated practice that is long since phased out in many other EU countries as being a dangerous pikey practice.  

 

I was involved a few years ago in a road safety organisation that was in direct consultation with the government here on matters such as this and we petitioned directly with this and a few other things (biker orientated), such as wire rope crash barriers. The response on the surface dressing was that it meets the minimum requirements and is carried out to the letter with many safe guards and our concerns didn't exist. Best thing of it all was a disgruntled Roads Service engineer was part of our team, and the source of some great evidence which was presented and ignored.... Their response was reported on and presented with all evidence publicly at the time to slurr them and quickly the organisation was excluded from all further consultations and they as a reply of sorts to the whole episode suddenly decided to contract a surveying company to carry out a public opinion survey on motorcyclists which was published by the government to say that all bikers basically have a psychological death wish and stand separate from normal society. Only remembering about half of that crap now, need to do a FOI request to see how much they wasted on that childish crap! 

Maybe I do have a vested interest - I'm a Civil Engineering Consultant with 26 years experience in highways and transport planning amongst other things...   but really I'm just trying to present a balanced view??

 

I myself don't like it when it is done badly - so I'm with you and everyone else on here in that respect, especially as it gives myself and others in the industry a bad name!!

 

The fundamental flaw is lack of knowledge really of those designing, specifying and carrying out the works!   And probably a lack of interest in doing it right...   I see a lot of people who can't be bothered to do it right and just repeat what has been done before and hence get the same crappy results...   as well as corner cutting because there isn't the money available to do it right...

 

Proportion of jobs I've seen done right - if I'm honest not many

So where is the quality control? Not being funny but offering a balanced view to people who seem to be 100% in agreement doesn't really do much.

I think many of us understand why it may be done when applied properly (and for the reasons specified), but many of us are scratching our heads because often there was no problem to fix, and in the short term it makes a horrible mess and in the long term the benefits are highly debatable.

I'm not saying the responsibility is on your shoulders as an individual (and I'm not trying to offend you at all) but if Civil Engineers are aware of bad practice and poor standards of application why doesn't something get done about it?

The conspiracy theorist in me (only a small part of me I admit) still thinks it's an insidious way of calming traffic and putting people off driving. Seems like many ideas this causes more problems than it solves.

Because council highway authorities are horrendously under funded.

Because council highway authorities are horrendously under funded.

 

It would be cheaper, safer and all round better if they just didnt touch them at all. 

 

Sometimes they're nice new tarmaced roads they're spoiling. 

Maybe I do have a vested interest - I'm a Civil Engineering Consultant with 26 years experience in highways and transport planning amongst other things...   but really I'm just trying to present a balanced view??

 

I myself don't like it when it is done badly - so I'm with you and everyone else on here in that respect, especially as it gives myself and others in the industry a bad name!!

 

The fundamental flaw is lack of knowledge really of those designing, specifying and carrying out the works!   And probably a lack of interest in doing it right...   I see a lot of people who can't be bothered to do it right and just repeat what has been done before and hence get the same crappy results...   as well as corner cutting because there isn't the money available to do it right...

 

Proportion of jobs I've seen done right - if I'm honest not many precisely because of the aforementioned reasons but it shouldn't be that way...

 

So like I said - only a vested interest and making a point because it annoys me as much as it does others!

Cheers skomaz, no offence intended from my direction either. Nothing wrong with a vested interest, as I said above.

 

From the posts in between, clearly the feeling in this totally unscientific survey is that it's a regarded as a cheap quick fix, used by the "powers that be" as something "being seen to be done", with the collusion of everyone involved (I appreciate that there will be some - such as yourself - being unfairly "tarred with the same brush" - sorry!).

 

I'm off to sample the roads of the north east over the next week - let's see how they compare to Merseyside and Sheffield, both of which I know very well.

 

 

 

Anyone remember the days when Belgian pave was regarded as the worst road surface in Europe?

Cheers skomaz, no offence intended from my direction either. Nothing wrong with a vested interest, as I said above.

 

From the posts in between, clearly the feeling in this totally unscientific survey is that it's a regarded as a cheap quick fix, used by the "powers that be" as something "being seen to be done", with the collusion of everyone involved (I appreciate that there will be some - such as yourself - being unfairly "tarred with the same brush" - sorry!).

 

I'm off to sample the roads of the north east over the next week - let's see how they compare to Merseyside and Sheffield, both of which I know very well.

 

 

 

Anyone remember the days when Belgian pave was regarded as the worst road surface in Europe?

 

If you can climb out of the potholes.. they're better than the ones in Sheffield . 

Here it's left as it's spilt over the road after a single pass with roller (sometimes, sometimes not) then it's up to the motorists over the following days to bed it in. It's meant to be swept fully following this, but that normally amounts to nothing more than a single pass of a sweeper in either direction not covering entire road, leaving piles in centre and at sides of carriageway, at this point all signs are removed and you go from driving down a normal road at 60mph to normally on a corner entering a gravel pit. But because some feckless civil servant signed it off as having inspected it and all swept properly without having got within 100 miles of it, no liability is accepted. 

 

 

Forgotten how long ago, but the road surface is as the day it was surfaced dressed. perhaps, we're lucky, FUBAR- as the road digging experts seem to have emigrated over here

I'd forgotten about the tar too!

 

Last time I drove over one of these freshly "stoned" roads the car was covered in tar afterwards. The Saab also had a lot of tar down the sides... I still haven't got it all off as I gave up/ran out of time after 30 mins!

 

Good explanation by skomaz. At least I understand why they are trying to do it... but it doesn't surprise me that it's done wrong! 

 

Constantly penny pinching and shortcutting in this country. You can't beat the roads in Germany, Holland and Belgium (I drive through them a fair bit). They seem to get it right so shouldn't we be learning from them? Or maybe that they actually invest more time and money in laying the roads right in the first place and rather than patching them up all the time re-laying when they need it?

You clearly see how they invest money that their countries have from being the lead countries in the EU.

 

The others get what they are given for roads and infrastructures improvement schemes.

There are some wonderful EU bits of routes leading to rural and difficult to get to Fishing Ports, beautiful roads in places where few venture.

Lovely road surfaces over parts of routes, expensive road side walls and pretty structures etc that go part of the way and then just the usual rubbish parts,

like the road to Mallaig, today closed by a land slide (rock fall).

Edited 12 August, 20169 yr by GoneOffSKi

I've driven that route before. My mum lived on Skye for a while and we drove up to see her. We did the Mallaig ferry on the way there as it was a nice route and fun to go on the ferry. Lovely roads... but was only in my Felicia L&K with 3 adults on board so it was a steady drive!

Apparently I have this type of dust riddled stone chip fest to look forward to between Welshpool and Newtown today. You it's funny I don't remember anything being wrong with that road the other week...