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news
Queens Road, Bristol (via StreetView).jpgPothole that sent Bristol cyclist ‘flying’ to be fixed after he complained on social media
A Clifton pothole will be fixed after a cyclist who fell victim to it tweeted about it.
The Bristol Post reports that Max Hemmings hit the pothole on Monday.
Unexpected flying lesson thanks to this #pothole in #bristol whilst #cycling Massive thank you to all those tagged who will help fix this... pic.twitter.com/3KorRJzboJ
— Max Hemmings (@MaxHemmings) June 19, 2017
Tagging in the council, he added, “in all seriousness, without being too dramatic, if the traffic was moving I could easily be tweeting this from A&E.”
He received a response from Better By Bike which campaigns to get people cycling in the West Country, who reported the incident.
They subsequently tweeted that an order had been raised with contractors for repairs and that the work should be completed in approximately 10 working days.
In March, The Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey found that 17 per cent of roads across England and Wales can be considered ‘poor’ – meaning they will need to be repaired within the next five years.
The estimated one-time catch-up cost to get roads back into reasonable condition has risen from £11.8bn in 2015/16 to £12.06bn in 2016/17.
Asphalt Industry Alliance chairman Alan Mackenzie commented: “The message from the research which informs ALARM is that highway teams simply do not have enough money to arrest the terminal decline in the condition of our local roads and the network is not resilient enough to meet the challenges ahead.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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22 comments
TBH, I thought everyone knew of the CUK's website, FillThatHole https://www.fillthathole.org.uk/ for reporting exactly this kind of defect. If only all those people who apparently already knew about this pothole had reported it, he wouldn't have fallen off.
It's simple quick and easy to report potholes using that site, and in any further exchanges with the council, it can be proved that the defect had been reported.
Which is important because councils own website often don't give you a record. Suits them for it not to be provable, of course.
Yeah - and? Look at Surrey in the league table. Their repair rate is effectively zero, and if you look on the map there are potholes that were reported 5+ years ago and regularly since.
Good site that it is, it's still entirely dependent of local authorities giving a flying fick, and many still don't.
12 billion to fix the roads here and now!
So, sensibly we cannot really afford to add yet more miles to our road network given we can't maintain the ones we do have.
So, why has my local MP announced with great gusto the building of a bypass 'to help alleviate town centre congestion' when it is obviously fiscal recklessness?
When will our government wake up and realise you can't just keep building roads all over the place and accept we have to get people off their arses and onto bicycles?
Politicians like announcing and opening new things - because so do the voters. Not many photo ops in an existing road that doesn't have a pothole but might have done if it hadn't been looked after properly.
Because of the way capital and maintenance money is doled out from central government to local authorities, it's easier to bid for more of the former because the latter isn't negotiable. So if you're a council which wants more roads money, then its capital for new things or nothing (save for the odd buttons from a one-off pothole competition).
And revenue for maintenance may be diverted for other purposes, e.g. social care, whereas a specific grant for a bypass has to be spent on a bypass.
And then there's the split between the generously-funded strategic road network and the cash-strapped local one(s), the latter being the more used, especially by cyclists.
Finally, we aren't really building roads all over the place - we haven't really built that many in recent decades.
Or maybe your questions were rhetorical...?
I'm probably wrong here so go easy on me, just some observations and musings .... I'm getting the feeling of complacency here ... After all that pot ain't a real pothole is it? Bah! I've bunny hopped bigger pot holes with my eyes closed and one leg off the pedal!
That road defect is downright fucking dangerous and perfect for tramlining a cyclist either spilling onto the pavement or spilling into the path of a close passing twit in their vehicle. Whilst most cycling enthusiasts and pro experts alike would never ride that close to the kerb, me included, not everyone thinks like that. Child or teenage cyclists don't think like that, grannies on their 3 speed shoppers don't think like that and anyone could be forced to swerve in towards a kerb by bullying drivers trying to squeeze through gaps that aren't there.
So, we are becoming normalised to dangerous road defects. A few years ago that photo would have had a much more robust reaction. Now it's, "ain't that bad dude."
Actually, it is.
Yes, Bulgaria too
I thought the term that replaced "Third world" was "developing", which always seems imprecise to me; it implies there are countries which have reached a final state of development beyond which no further movement is possible. All countries are in fact in a continuous state of development.
Anywayz, that pot hole; it's not at all big, even for the Triangle. Big enough to send you a cropper though.
This country is shit.
Try moving to Yemen or Afghanistan or Somalia or Albania or Bangla Desh or The Phillipines or Columbia or Romania or Zimbabwe or Mexico or Sudan or Egypt or Bulgaria or Syria or Iraq or Tibet or Ethiopia or China or Russia or Chad or .............. and there's plenty more where they came from.
Well, yeah, point taken; but none of them are saying that they're "First World " countries... (the UK does still say it's in the first world, doesn't it? I lose track)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 'First World' and 'Third World' are no longer to be used!
When I did A-level Geography a couple years ago, the PC brigade had decided that the correct terms are "More Economically Developed Countries" and "Less Economically Developed Countries" - this will change in a couple years no doubt.
I was also told that the correct term for someone of mixed race is "dual heritage" - funnily enough, unless you are inbred (like some of the pc brigade), everyone is of dual heritage.
Make of this what you will.
OK; in that case, somebody needs to tell the hashtag police...
It was meant ironically :p
You would be amazed at the political correctness overkill at schools though. Teachers are pretty much not allowed to tell students that they are wrong anymore...
University is somewhat similar, the SU banned songs they deem offensive from being played at uni.
I've been to a few of the places in this list and the roads in China, Mexico and The Phillipines are much better than in England.
How many of your 326 posts have been anything like objective about the UK? If you just want to complain about particular aspects of it, there are more appropriate forums.
Tbh for central Bristol that defect really (edited) isn't that bad. That particular one, I think, has been there a very long time (I just never ride that close to the kerb to catch it).
There is a lot more exactly like that in Blackburn, Lancashire. Councils will not repave until the road is falling to pieces even when it is cheaper in the long run.
3,999 more, to be exact.
Wow! That's enough to fill the Albert Hall.
That pothole doesn't look too bad, but the shape of it means that it can catch a bike wheel easily.
Now, are we going to get into a strongly worded debate about whether you should ride that close to the kerb? (Personally, I'd be taking up a lane on that section as it's slightly downhill and there's two lanes of one-way traffic).
P.S. Don't read the toxic BristolPost anti-cyclist comments.