SIR – So we are going to spend £36 billion repairing potholes. What a waste of time.
The cause of potholes is the volume and weight of modern traffic.
When we first needed smoother road surfaces in the early days of road transport, we spread tar, then granite chips, and rolled it all level with a 21-ton steam-driven road-roller. This was to accommodate light vehicular traffic. For years no goods vehicles weighed over five tons.
Nowadays we use similar methods except that the surfacing is rolled with a roller weighing a little over five tons, but HGVs on our roads weigh over 30 tons.
Is it any wonder that the roads cut up so easily. If we are to prevent our roads from cutting up badly then either we reduce the weight of traffic or come up with a method of surfacing the roads in a manner that will cope with the heavier demands of today.
Keith Rayner, Laburnum Drive, Baildon
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