NZ Transport Agency senior manager, Chris Hunt reckons that the rutting doesn't present any safety risk for drivers …. ? Should this guy keep his job with a statement as irresponsible as that or is the immediate solution going to be put a heap of orange cones on the affected piece of road and a very slow temporary speed limit
supernova2,
Jul 5, 1:01am
I'm sure that part, or even a lot, of the problem with our roading network is that fact most of the people working on maintenance are temps employed through agencies. So every day the makeup of the gang changes and I'm sure that in most cases they have no idea what they are doing or why they are doing it. Add to that mix that some of the companies are part of the Fletcher empire so there really is no hope.
farwest,
Jul 5, 1:17am
I don't know. sex comes into everything these days.
brouser3,
Jul 5, 2:22am
I guess that having trucks laden up to a gross weight of 53T or maybe even more, doesn't have any impact on the road either ….
tamarillo,
Jul 5, 2:25am
well yes of course it does , but since they're legal and well known quantity the road should be built to handle them surely.
tweake,
Jul 5, 2:55am
sounds like the same moron we had up here who publicly said that the potholes where not on the driving line therefore did not need to be fixed. he obviously drives in a far different manner than everyone else. here i thought driving over the same spot constantly caused potholes.
the trouble with the ruts is they fill up with water and you have people doing highway speeds smashing into fairly deep water. deep enough to pull vehicles off the road if they are not careful. we have that issue up here and they simply ignore it until someone gets killed. standard NZTA policy.
taipapaki,
Jul 5, 3:00am
Went to Wellington last week. The Desert road is just one set of potholes right now.
They reach the end of a bit they are sealing, and the bit they did first is already smashed up.
The brand new Kapiti Expressway is a total failure - most of it is being resealed. Id be surprised if its a two year old road.
Id hate to ask, but I bet the taxpayer not the contractor is funding the repairs.
Bring back the Ministry of Works, get rid of these poor quality contractors.
cabrio1,
Jul 5, 6:25am
Unfortunately Nz doesn't have a roading network, more a series of patches and potholes joined together. Sorry.
brouser3,
Jul 5, 3:45pm
And then the action generally ends with a media release …. it takes a very committed person or group of persons who have the time, funds and technical resources to pursue the matter before anything is done - even then it is often to late for another innocent victim/statistic.
brouser3,
Jul 5, 3:50pm
I bet your house driveway would smash up pretty quickly too if you drove a 10t or even 5t vehicle up and down it each day instead of your car which probably weighs in at less than 2t.
trad,
Jul 5, 7:06pm
The road would have been designed for heavy loads but insufficient compaction or too wet basecourse at time of compaction highly likely to be the cause.
bill-robinson,
Jul 5, 7:12pm
do not be sorry, you are quite right as far as I have seen
snapperheadrkp,
Jul 5, 7:49pm
Ewing Stevens (Host and Amateur Quack on Radio Pacific a few years ago) used to quote from his experience as a Councillor on Manakau City Council that expert qualified Roading Engineers use this equation re road damage by vehicles. i.e. approx 75 Cars = 1 Truck He claimed the fees paid by Trucks go nowhere near to covering the cost of the damage they do and that the fees (licence and fuel) Car Owners pay subside the NZ Trucking Industry
moparpete,
Dec 5, 9:52am
Very true. The wrong foundation or pre compaction will determine the longivity of the final product. That being said, the contractors I would imagine have a time and budget to adhere to, so any over spend or delay would hit them in the pocket. I have driven large trucks on a swamp laden road that I know what the foundation of the road was made up of. In the twenty plus years of driving on it, I can only remember a handful of times it has being resealed, such is the build quality.
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