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The French are real smoothies...


MrCanary
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Well, they certainly are when it comes to road surfaces...

Having just returned from a very pleasant spell at my beloved French house, I was once again reminded of just how superb French road surfaces are compared with those in the UK. Even the small country road that passes my home there, is as smooth as a billiard ball compared with the appalling surfaces I encountered along the A.23, M.23, M.25 and M.11. The latter are full of ruts, bumps, cracks and where they appear to be OK, they just rattle and roll you about all over the place.

Why do we drivers in the UK put up with such utter rubbish when it comes to our roads?

Oh, and with the French facing the same oil purchasing problems as the rest of the world, how come they could provide my diesel for more than 20p per litre less than the UK...

Rip-off Britain!

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When you see how much it costs for resurfacing french roads you understand why they do the job properly to last a good few years and not just patch it up like they do in the UK so at the first frost or heatwave the tarmac falls apart.
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I don't know about smooth roads...

The road to the village was patched up a few weeks ago. They did a really good job and you cannot feel the repairs, but they left a layer of gravel on the surface which has turned an already narrow road full of bends into a skid pan and a drive to the village into an ice-skating session!

You bike riders will know what I mean...

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If you drive south from our house in southern Haute Vienne, along the D675, after around 4km you cross into the Dordogne. The road surface gets noticeably smoother going south, the edges better defined and marked and the road is wider. More money has also been spent on taking out bends.

I don't think that 87 is a prosperous department, so maybe it's down to how much money each department spends?

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I'm not sure if it is down to individual departments in France, but if it is, I must be very fortunate in my travels because I cannot remember experiencing any really bad roads.

Certainly, the roads in the UK are poor almost everywhere. When I travel from any of the Channel ports to Norwich, the road surface conditions are never better than average (maybe a short section of the M.11 the London side of Cambridge is an exception). And as for the brand new Attleborough by-pass in Norfolk, the roly-poly finish ought to, in my opinion, lead to the contractors refunding the government.

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My guess is that it's due simply to the volume of traffic per mile of road. If you could work out the number of road miles in each country and divide this by the number of vehicles regularly using them, France would come out with a much lower figure. Especially if you took a sample comparing SE England with any section of France. You would need to compare SE England with eg the Toulouse ring road to get a fair comparison. On the other hand I've heard that the french motorways , where you pay to use them, are maintained more regularly than british motorways which of course are free. Also there are many small towns round here which are on heavy goods routes going to and from Spain where the little narrow roads are in poor condition. Pat.
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That is a fair point Pat, but where the French pay toll fees, ALL Brits pay road fund licences - goodness knows what happens to that money!

Oh, and I also emphasise the quality of the work. The roly-poly Attleborough by-pass in Norfolk has been like it since the day it opened and has nothing to do with the volume of traffic now using it. By comparison, the new A.28 from near Rouen to Alencon is flat and smooth!

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Have to agree, Mel. I recently drove the M180/A180 both ways from near Doncaster to Grimsby, and return, and was shocked at the "tramlines" in the inside lane surface caused by lorry tyres. Not worn, actually DEPRESSED into the road.[:'(] In some places they are so deep that getting OUT of them is hard work. In the wet, water stands in them and causes aquaplaning.

Why on earth do OUR road surfaces suffer from this, when those in France don't seem to do so?

Can there REALLY be more HGVs on the M/A180 than on, say, the stretch of road between Calais port and the A16/A26 interchange?

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Yes, strange isn't it FA? The problems we both mention are down to the quality (or lack of it) of the original work. The tramlines you refer to are really dangerous and on stretches of road such as these, I can forgive people for doing one of my pet hates - driving for long periods in the centre lane.
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[quote user="Ford Anglia"]

Have to agree, Mel. I recently drove the M180/A180 both ways from near Doncaster to Grimsby, and return, and was shocked at the "tramlines" in the inside lane surface caused by lorry tyres. Not worn, actually DEPRESSED into the road.[:'(] In some places they are so deep that getting OUT of them is hard work. In the wet, water stands in them and causes aquaplaning.

Why on earth do OUR road surfaces suffer from this, when those in France don't seem to do so?

Can there REALLY be more HGVs on the M/A180 than on, say, the stretch of road between Calais port and the A16/A26 interchange?

[/quote]

Don't know if the 'tram lines' were worn or depressed (it's possible that any depression could have been sorted with tranques?), but the one thing I read about the Le Mans 24 was the problem that the drivers were having on the fast parts was with the 'tram lines' caused by the heavies. So if the premier French motor sports event was having troubles then who the hell else was.

I know that the small roads around our village are a series of pot holes joined together. Especially in the top part of the village. The method of repair is for two blokes in a small flatbed truck to shovel a bit of wet tatmac into any holes they find, smack it down with the back of the shovel and drive onto the next hole. The passing cars and the, all too frequent HGV with a massive digger on it, do the rolling for them. 2 daze later and the hole has magically re-appeared and they come round again and chuck some more tarmac in it. Keeps the blokes in a job though, really nice blokes too!

P.S. My Ford was a 100E Prefect, 1197 side valve. Not a posh Anglia [:D]

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""The method of repair is for two blokes in a small flatbed truck to shovel a bit of wet tatmac into any holes they find, smack it down with the back of the shovel and drive onto the next hole. The passing cars and the, all too frequent HGV with a massive digger on it, do the rolling for them. 2 daze later and the hole has magically re-appeared and they come round again and chuck some more tarmac in it.""

[:D] Funny that, it's the same here, sometimes it can stay in place for a month or even two.

Chris

 

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A few months ago, a road gang arrived to redo the narrow little lane leading down to our house.  They scraped the old top surface off, then laid fresh tarmac and rolled it to a billiard table smoothness.   I handed round some beers and we got chatting about how much better it was now compared to the gritty old surface which was a bit dodgy for me using the motorbike.  "Ah, oui, gravel is bad for motards" they all agreed.

Next morning, they came down and finished it off by spreading gravel all over it.....[:(]

 

 

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They re-gravel the lanes around here fairly regulary as well as filling in the holes as above.  I think the gravel maybe because the surface of the tarmac melts in the heat of the summer - last year the lane up from us was really sticky and almost running down the slope as it hadn't been re-gritted for a while.

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[quote user="Suze"]They re-gravel the lanes around here fairly regulary ...  I think the gravel maybe because the surface of the tarmac melts in the heat of the summer [/quote]

Ahhh! At last, yet another good reason for living in Brittany as we do not have to suffer gravel on our roads - not where we live anyway - because, in general, we do not have the extremely high temperatures found elsewhere in France. The downside of this is that we are experiencing very showery, rainy, windy weather, not unlike the UK, at present. Tant pis!

Sue [;-)]

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Interesting

Among all those which do not have anything to say, most pleasant are those who keep silent themselves."
[quote user="Clair"]I don't know about smooth roads...
The road to the village was patched up a few weeks ago. They did a really good job and you cannot feel the repairs, but they left a layer of gravel on the surface which has turned an already narrow road full of bends into a skid pan and a drive to the village into an ice-skating session!
You bike riders will know what I mean...
[/quote]
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[quote user="Jonzjob"]

[quote user="jc"]100e was 1172cc. as was the Ford Ten.1197cc was the OHV.[/quote]

I stand corrected. It was a long time ago, but I do remember the registration WAK26. It would be worth a small fortune now peut etra?

[/quote]

I wonder if a copper ever bought my first reg MCB 999.   I reckon UXB ??? would be worth something to the bomb squad ( I think I still own that reg no - technically )

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