The BBC’s Pothole Propaganda
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dennis Ambler
More outright propaganda from the BBC:
Potholes caused misery in 2023 on a scale not seen in years, but scientists hope technology like self-healing roads will help rid us of them for good.
Reports of potholes and damage they caused hit five-year highs, according to local governments and the AA.
The AA estimates they may have cost UK drivers as much as £500m in repairs.
Scientists warn climate change will worsen the problem as more wet weather and temperature extremes give an extra battering to the surfaces we drive on.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67957584
Quite why this is filed under Climate, and written the BBC Climate & Science team is beyond me.
On the same day the BBC actually told the real story:
.
Potholes form when water seeps into tiny cracks in the road surface, usually caused by traffic. When this water freezes it expands and then when it thaws, it gets smaller.
This makes the cracks larger, further weakening the road and increasing the amount of water that can get under the surface.
As the road surface weakens, traffic breaks it up to create a small hole, which expands as more traffic passes over.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-67958426
In other words, it is freezing weather, not hot weather that causes potholes, something which global warming is supposed to reduce.
And the reason why potholes are becoming more of a problem is the lack of money to repair them properly, not just patch them, as I am sure we can all testify to. Maybe if councils did not waste money on climate nonsense, and EV drivers paid their full share of tax, this issue could be resolved.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I assume they didn’t mention the extra wear and tear caused by all those much heavier EVs
No. It’s the usual winter frost what does it breaking up the road
surfaces . Unattended it gets worse every year G
Frost is certainly not the problem here in rural Andalusia! And yet we have an increasing problems with potholes & broken road surfaces in & around Jerez & Seville.
Wear & tear is the cause, exacerbated by heavier vehicles – which must include battery EVs. Blaming climate is a nonsense.
The generally heavier weight of EVs doesn’t help
When the repair guys came down our country road, they filled the hole but to within 3/4 inch of the surface of the remaining road. When I asked why they didn’t fill it right up to the surface, the leading guy told me that it wasn’t now categorized as a pot hole thus saving on the cost of the filler.
OMG!!! (Channelling daughter!) That is a story that really needs more publicity. PLEASE, send it to your local press and get as much coverage as poss!
A proper repair job would entail ensuring that the underlying courses of stones and gravel are also repaired, otherwise you are just filling with mostly bitumen and fine gravel, which is easily squished out again by heavier traffic. The bitumen is meant to be mainly a binder for the stones, not a load bearing structure. If you’ve ever done a ring and ball test on a bitumen sample you would appreciate immediately its potential for flow, particularly on warmer days. It doesn’t take much weight to distort it.
An improper job today is far superior to a proper job three years from now.
An improper job today means another improper job will be needed in 6-9 months. It really is much cheaper and better to do a proper job from the outset, especially since potholes will grow and undermine the road surface to create fresh potholes a couple of yards away if not properly repaired.
You pay full price for government; you deserve a fully filled pothole.
‘[Anonymous] Scientists warn climate change will worsen the problem’
The problem is government failing to fill potholes. So this ‘climate change’ will make public officials even less responsive?
“It’s not our fault! It’s climate change’s fault.”
Slighty O/T, but here’s a fun maths question: If I’m driving at x m/s, and go through a pothole y metres deep, how fast does the bit of tyre that hits the edge of the pothole connect? I was thinking about it after hitting another hole and being amazed that the tyre disn’t burst – but, because the circumference of the tyre will be travelling backwards relative to the car at that point in its rotation, it won’t be x kph! I must get out more.
The answer is 0 m/s.
If a car is traveling at 30 mph (20mph in Wales !! ),
The center of the wheel is doing 30 mph forward.
The area of tyre in contact with the road is at the same speed as the road = ‘0 mph’; as that area leaves the road it accelerates backwards for 1/4 turn to 30 mph, then it accelerates forwards for 1/4 turn to 60 mph.
The top of the tyre is going forward at 60 mph.
So 0 to 60 & back to 0 … from a wheel at constant rpm, magic !!
I did get out, but it was cold, so came back to do this !!! (:-))
Ah, yeahbutnobutyeah…
The bit of tyre in contact with the road does indeed travel at 0m/s (I think it’s actally a slight negative speed as the tyre slips as it grips – that’s one reason it it wears down, or that’s what we were taught about tractor tyres in agricultural engineering.).
However, the bit that hits the front edge of the pothole isn’t the same as the contact patch. It’s a couple of cm above the lowest point of the tyre (depending on the depth and length of the pothole). Hence the thump.There’s still a forward speed and also a downward speed if the car is dropping. It’s vector time.
If I didn’t have to go and defrost water troughs for Mrs F’s noisy cattle, I’d work out an equation….
“It’s vector time.”
The acceleration is always directed toward the centre of the wheel and at right angles to the direction of the momentary velocity. The magnitude of the acceleration vector is constant but the direction and the components change all the time. Therefore the velocity vector is not constant.
With respect to the ground and using an inertial Cartesian frame of reference based in the ground, and considering – for a specific piece of tread – the component of velocity in the direction of motion of the car (from a start time when the tread piece is in contact with the ground) the magnitude of the forward speed varies as follows, during a single rotation:
Start zero
1/4 turn 30 m.p.h.
1/2 turn 60 m.p.h.
3/4 turn 30 m.p.h.
Full turn zero
Therefore there is a (varying) acceleration forwards in the first half of the turn and acceleration backwards in the second half of the turn (there is never a velocity backwards*). The curve traced out with respect to the ground is called the ordinary cycloid. The curve traced out using an inertial Cartesian frame moving with the centre of the wheel is a circle. With THIS frame the descriptions of the velocities are different but the accelerations are the same. “In”** a so-called exact rotating frame based on the centre both would “be”** zero.
The idea that climate change is the cause of the recent increase in potholes in England is beyond pathetic. I was on a train a few years ago where there were some ladies who worked for a council.
They were talking about an unfortunate colleague who was on Valium because of her new job. The job was to accept telephone reports of potholes and tell the caller that something would be done. It was causing her a crisis of conscience because she had been told specifically by her bosses that pothole repair was not in the budget.
* During the first half of the cycle there is a component of velocity upwards and during the second a component downwards.
** The standard but weak and misleading “words of reification.” It is, of course, a fact that “unusual frames” are nothing but mental conveniences.
Not entirely sure where all this accelaration stuff comes into it. My take on it is simpler: at the instant of contact, the point of the tyre that is due to hit the front edge of the pothole will have a forward velocity dictated by where in the wheel’s rotation that point of the tyre is, and a smaller vertical velocity (as the car drops). These two will dictate how hard the tyre hits the front edge of the pothole. My head hurts.
“My head hurts”
If your head hurts with that, don’t get involved with velocity vectors involved in the tip vortex in a steam turbine … you’d get through a lot of paracetamol !!
I have looked at the left front tire of my car, its dimensions, and the way it sits on the ground. I assume my car is going 10 m/s when the pothole is encountered. I estimate that when the leading part of the tyre encounters the ending edge of the pothole – and at that moment has to lift the car up against perhaps a fourth of the weight of the car – that leading part will be about 0.2 meters from the part of the tire still in contact (but not for long) with the ground back in the pothole. In other words it will be about half a radian short of completing its cycle. The “new” supporting bit of tread will have a forward velocity with respect to the ground of about 10 – cos(0.5) = approx 2 m/s and a downward velocity of sin(0.5) = also approx 2 m/s.
But all this is actually irrelevant, since since the momentum of the spinning tyre is not what gets changed in a ‘thump.’ The thump involves mutual equal impulsive forces, resisted by the inertia of the whole car on the one hand and the inertia of the whole earth on the other. The actual momentary forces are incalculable, but large. Worse, the momentary pressures can be enormous, depending on the actual jaggedness and sharpness of the edge.
They can also be exerted by the slashing SIDES of the pothole.
All one can do is regard the blown tire with disgust, at 11 p.m. on a wet night, and wonder why it failed on this occasion and not on one of a hundred other similar occasions – and I speak from experience.
Never backwards – draw the phase plane graph.
I am now going out!!!
’10 – cos(0.5)’ should be ’10 – 10 x cos(0.5)’
and
‘sin(0.5)’ should be ’10 x sin(0.5)’
Effectively the tyre will be near stationary – depending on the depth and diameter of the hole.
The reason the tyre bursts is that on modern low profile wheel assemblies the wheel rim can collapse the low side wall so nipping it and cutting the wall when the tread hits the wall of the hole.
Poof!!!
“…never backwards…”
The velocity of the designated piece of tread never has a backwards component (with respect to the ground.)
The acceleration however has a backwards component (with respect to the ground) during the second half of the rotation when the velocity changes from 60 mph in the forward direction
(30 mph forward from rotation and 30 mph forward from the overall motion of the car) to zero (30 mph backwards from rotation and 30 mph forward from the overall motion of the car.)
Incompetent project management by councils and incompetent “cowboy” contractors = a toxic, destructive, expensive mix.
UK road users haven’t had effective representation for decades.
Paul,
JIT was on this at Cliscep yesterday:
👍🏻
Maybe if councils did not waste money on climate nonsense, and EV drivers paid their full share of tax, this issue could be resolved……………
Hammer… Nail
This nonsense will go on, until the taxpayer says ENOUGH
I was going to say just that!
As a cyclist, I get to know where all the potholes are in the lanes near me. No matter how often they are repaired, they always return in the same places every year or two. The reason is because there are no proper drains under the lanes (as they are just tarmaced old trackways) and potholes form where the water comes to the surface after rain. The drainage need fixing to prevent the potholes reforming, but of course this is not done. The pothole problem is exacerbated by the much bigger and heavier tractors and trailers that the farmers use on totally unsuitable, narrow lanes.
Phew – was worried EVs weighing up to three times more than petrol or diesel cars might be having an impact.
Sent from my iPhone
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” Potholes are the number one concern . . . ”
The drivers must be looking at their cell-phones.
My main concern is impaired drivers.
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
They wrote:
Scientists warn climate change will worsen the problem as more wet weather and temperature extremes give an extra battering to the surfaces we drive on.
Yep, spending money on worse than useless wind and solar to fix a made up climate issue will definitely cause potholes worse due the the reduced funding available for necessary maintenance and the much heavier electric vehicles causing more harm to the roadways.
heavy rain, night time, puddles and flooded parts of the road and no-one is going to see a pothole. Traffic coming the other way so you have to stay on your side of the road – you will hit whatever is underneath the water.
In breaking news today, Sir Ed Davey explained that the Post Office fiasco was the result of climate change, and nothing to do with his abject failure to ask simple questions. Meanwhile Baroness Hallett will direct the COVID enquiry to uncover the impact climate change must have had in making politicians take all those terribly bad decisions.
On the B road into my village the whole length of the surface on both sides is full of cracks on the line of the nearside wheels. No doubt this will start breaking up in the frosts.
Hydrogen grifters and Green/eco parasites are quite something.
The UK hydrogen car filling stations all closed and look at Mirai sales:
https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?q=Mirai
Today gas is trading below 70p/therm which is about £23.90/MWh, so hydrogen actually is priced at over ten times gas.
That’s right.
My costings the other day were based on £1/therm
…and as you need fuel to create the hydrogen, excluding renewables as they don’t generate the amount required with the reliability required, you might as well use the gas in the first place, as that also saves you the cost of upgrading the distribution network, which will be very expensive.
Now what would be really smart, is a way to use nuclear powered electricity generation to make natural gas.
O/T Did children randomly decide to have a word of the year
and make that word “Climate Change”
or were they guided ?
I had to dig into PDF.
It’s PRasNews for dictionary corp OUP and rigged, cos they could only choose from 3 words researchers suggested.
“Children’s Word of the Year.
The exercise has been going on since 2014: the Oxford English Dictionary people ask children for a word to sum up the year.
This year, it’s ‘climate change’ followed by ‘war’. ”
33% and 31% with coronation next at 24%
“In our first survey, conducted with the Educational Research Forum,
we asked *teachers* to submit contenders for Children’s Word of
the Year following class discussions about words children felt had
been important during 2023.
Over 3,000 children took part in
these discussions.
We analysed their responses and drew up a
shortlist of three words that *reflected* the most frequent
suggestions: climate change, coronation and war.
In a final survey, conducted with Opinium, we asked 1,000 children to
choose their Children’s Word of the Year 2023 from the first shortlist,
it’s a word that OUP researchers CHOSE themselves cos it “reflected” kids’ suggestions
Isn’t “climate change” two words? How can this be “word” of the year. Shows how intellectually lacking the whole exercise was!
Anyway having a shortlist is as corrupt as the BBC process of having a short list of nicely DEI woke candidates for “sports personality of the year”. It is not a free vote – you can only vote for one of their nice woke and generally useless options (and where usually none of them actually has a personality!)
” This year, it’s ‘climate change’ ”
My guess is that schools are teaching children inaccurate information about the weather and the climate. The medjia certainly broadcast inaccurate information about the weather and the climate.
“My guess is…”
No need to guess. It is hardly a secret.
‘rocks in their head’
Winterwatch – BBC2 started on Tuesday. Opening scene.. Strachan refers to the “rain, rain and more rain” of October to December with “storms and flooding and river banks bursting. We felt it and the wildlife felt it” Packham responds with “part of our remit this week is to look at the impact of that weather, of climate breakdown, on wildlife across the UK”
Climate Breakdown? So another week of climate bullsh*t propaganda to come? Worth a complaint ?
Haven’t watched the programme since 2016 (when the BBC sacked the sensible presenter Martin Hughes-Games and brought in incompetent presenters who met the diversity criteria).
To just give more information on the initiation of potholes to that already covered.
The main cause of failure of the flexible, asphalt road surfaces is primarily the ageing and embrittlement of the asphalt itself resulting from the loss of its hydrocarbon binders. Loads, particularly heavy ones, thus will crack the surfacing to allow water to permeate. As described, the action of frost and freezing of the water rapidly exacerbates further cracking and spalling, leading to potholes. Until comparatively recently the maintenance regime for such surfacing was the periodic spraying with hot tar (to add a new waterproof and flexible surface membrane and cover any cracking) together with chipping and dust to provide a new braking surface, now rarely seen, if at all, as a ‘cost-saving measure.
That surfacing layer also provides protection from the engineered pavement’s sub-base and basecourse that are designed specifically to take the imposed loads on the roadway. The ingress of water into those will also weaken the structure, requiring a deeper restoration process to make good. Water leaks from municipal water pipes are an additional hazard.
I hope this helps with understanding of the enormity of restoring UK’s much neglected roadway networks.
Gosh, I can not even remember the last time I saw that once-familiar sign, “Go slow! New surface. Danger of flying grit” !
Want fewer potholes? Cut down more trees. Shaded areas of roads get colder than non shaded areas.
Erosional damage from freezing water is commonly attributed to volumetric expansion of the water. This is the explanation in most general, geological textbooks. But it is a ‘Just So! story.’ Professor James Thomson* showed its falsity, 150 years ago.
The disintegration is actually caused by something called ‘cryosuction,’ which is the flow of water towards the growing ice crystals. This phenomenon produces large local stresses.
* Elder brother of the more famous William Thomson – later enobled as Lord Kelvin.
West Virginia is pothole central. We now have a real snow and low temperatures. This morning is 10F (or ca. -12 for those across the pond). Our temperatures will fluctuate during January and February revealing the maximum number of said potholes. Also, during this weather the good asphalt cannot be produced and what they can use readily pops out.
In West Virgiinia we refer to it as winter…..not climate change. But, what do we know in them thar hills?
“…good asphalt…”
I seem to remember from my childhood that the road menders at that time used gouts of flame from portable gas burners to condition the repaired surface before gritting. It made for a weird, sickly-sweet, atmosphere. I honestly can not remember there ever being a general problem with potholes. They were fixed as and when weather permitted.
Where is the bitumen going to come from, if we “just stop oil” ?
“Climate change” is now the universal excuse used by all public bodies when they fail to maintain their infrastructure. You hear it from Councils (potholes, floods caused by lack of drain maintenance), DEFRA (when rivers flood because of lack of dredging and maintenance), Network Rail (when overhead lines collapse, railways flood or are blocked by falling trees).
It’s become a very convenient excuse for incompetence, and when money has been wasted on diversity and inclusion policies
Correct. It is the exact opposite of science. Instead of inquiry into what happened to develop understanding, they simply declare ‘climate change.’
See also: “An act of God.”
Everyone knows, with half an ounce of common sense, that you always overfill a hole to allow for settlement or compression. But perhaps not the BBC.
Yes, BEV’s cause more road damage than ICE vehicles because BEV’s are typically 30% heavier.
Consequently, they cause 3 times the damage of ICE vehicle because road damage is proportional to the 4th power of the axle weight.