As I ponder my tea and toast this morning one rather strange thought crosses my mind. With all of the potholes around the Borough, just how much has it cost the motorists of Barnet? I don't mean the cost of mending the potholes, but the cost of mending our cars. My brother is a welder and he tells me that he's welding at least one alloy wheel a day. Whilst he's doing rather well, he was telling me of the damage which is being done to our cars. A new term is springing up in the world of the MOT testers who check the roadworthyness of our cars. "Pothole fatigue". This is damage caused to cars by continually hitting potholes at high speed. I myself have been caught out several times recently. Whilst I'm a reasonably careful driver, with recent heavy rain, not all potholes are visible. You know the feeling "CRUNCH".
I was discussing this with a couple of friends and they suggested that maybe the Council could erect hazard notices. These would indicate to us that we are approaching an unrepaired pothole. One of the other effects is that I've spoken to several cyclists who have severely damaged their bikes. Whilst we all understand that the Council is stretched repairing the potholes, the failure to warn of us of road hazards could be construed as negligence in a court of law. Let us hope that the Council considers this seriously and at least puts a few signs up. I would nominate Watling Avenue by Burnt Oak Leisure Centre as the worst bit of road I know in the whole Borough.
3 comments:
But by the time the council has commissioned a warning sign (the design of which needs to be ratified by a committee, three sub-committees and Uncle Tom Cobley) they could have just filled in the hole.
Contrary to popular misconception, temporary filling with cold tarmac is neither time consuming nor expensive. The council could easily fill in most of the current potholes using this method, reserving hot tarmac for the more serious holes. This applies to all councils - not just Barnet - but unfortunately, Town Halls are run by people with little to no experience of managing projects in the real world, so we end up with a poor service that costs more than it should.
Perhaps they aren't beeing repaired too fast under instructions from the government? Anything to make owing a car more costly has to be good news!!!
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