Featured Out For A Ride Today

Our roads are truly awful, Joe. With you, mate, it’s a disgrace.

 

Maybe they are spending a lot of money putting up people in hotels.... and other stuff like that??

Roads around where I live are bad, some huge potholes, and the roads they do resurface are often secondary routes for some odd reason! Further north they seem to still find the funds to keep the roads maintained, my recent trip around Argyll and Bute reminded me what good roads are like!!

 

Responsibility for road repairs depends on road type. Motorways, trunk routes and A roads are maintained by the National Highways Authority, the rest by the relevent local Council.
Dual sport bikes with bigger wheels and suspension travel make more sense than ever these days.

 

Hi Joe,
Good post mate, fully agree with you .
Can I add my "two penneth"

I find it very surprising that so many people on this forum from all parts of the country report the poor and potentially dangerous state of many local road surfaces and yet it seems to never be mentioned as a contributory factor in road accidents.

Most of the press coverage of the findings from local County Coroner’s reports into fatal road traffic accidents over the last decade or so there are many occasions that the age/ experience of the driver/rider is mentioned frequently as a contributory factor of the accident. Along with the prevailing weather conditions, excess speed and driver error. Maybe others will have evidence to the contrary but I cannot recall any occasion when the degraded road surface or vegetation obscured road signs or the worn out road markings were ever stated as a possible contributory factors to an accident?

The roads around this part of southern Scotland earlier this year were truly appalling, although there were some improvements made over the summer. After many of the local “A” roads had been “surface dressed” they were then left without any road markings for months on end. Given the large number of visitors this area has over the summer many in motor homes you can well imagine the number of near misses regularly encountered while riding on the cross country A roads.

I am pretty sure I am not the only motorcyclist on this forum that, during their riding career, will have experienced the Official “conversation” with traffic police officers centring around how our riding had “fallen well below” the expected safety standard. Yet these same road officers do not appear to regard road surfaces that “fall well below” the expected standard as a serious safety concern?

Perhaps the great National Organisations such as MAG, AA & RAC should insist that part of any future Police “Road Safety” campaigns planned should place as much recorded emphasis on the road surface quality, road markings and obscured signage as is currently placed solely on speed.
Cheers Th'ed(Ret)

 

I am sorry to say but once a Great wealthy country but now a third world country.........I went to Spain and Portugal this year.....wonderful roads.....fantastic to be there.......what happened to Britain????

 

I took my Bonneville over to northern France earlier this year. Fantastic roads! Well surfaced and pretty much pot-hole free. These countries clearly have different priorities.
Also noticed the French don't litter their country with rubbish.

 

Being here in the US I don't really know, but maybe being part of the EU has some benefits? Were the roads always bad? I spent many years of my life in Europe and the roads were generally pretty good.

I'm thinking of getting a bike to keep in Europe, one of my goals to ride more in the UK. Should I go for an adventure bike with taller suspension and bigger wheels?

 

When we belonged to the EU some parts of the UK benefitted from road improvement grants, for example Wales. I travel through Wales fairly regularly and their roads are generally better surfaced than around where I live. Obviously that source of money has now gone.
I think successive governments (and particularly the last one) have cut funding going to local councils. So councils in turn have had to prioritise and road safety isn't top of the list. Clearly we haven't yet reached the deaths and serious injuries threshold.

 

I'm afraid that might happen here too with the incoming administration.