Ive had a short battle with NZTA after a pothole punched the shock through the top hat on my pulsar in balclutha many years ago. Default for the contractor was to say 'nah we didnt know about the pothole' so I sent him the photo of the pothole with their contractors paint around it to mark that it needed fixing. Gave up in the end, it was just a top hat and it cost next to nothing to fix.
Couldn't be bothered wasting time and energy on it.
tweake,
Aug 20, 12:37pm
this is fairly common up here. get some decent rain and the poorly done tarseal fails resulting in some nasty pot holes. it hit the news ages ago when they had a big line up of broken cars sitting on the side of the road. low profile tires are common even from factory.
philltauranga,
Aug 20, 12:56pm
One advantage to some of the low profile tires is when you get a blowout/puncture on the front, you don't loose control of the car.
marmar1,
Aug 20, 1:06pm
Probably on his phone and didn't see the pothole.
john1623,
Aug 20, 2:58pm
I personally think low profile tyres and wide spoke oversize rims are ugly and do nothing for the looks of a vehicle.
rbd,
Aug 20, 6:07pm
You guys sound like a bunch of old granddad's!
I popped a front tyre on a pothole near Auckland airport (Ihumatao Road) a few years back. Standard size Honda Civic tyre, so you can't pick on them being low profile! Was a side road which were subject to heavy truck use at the time, didn't see small, but deep pothole through early morning darkness and mist.
Notified council in writing of the issue. They didn't want to know. Pothole unfixed three months later. State of road was unsafe.
While of course road conditions can vary, the councils should burden some responsibility to maintain the roads in an appropriate manner. Especially when heavily used by construction trucks.
I also gave up the fight.
marte,
Aug 20, 6:33pm
We pay road taxes to have our roading up to a suitable standard to drive our vehicles on. We have to regularly have our vehicles checked & certified to these standards, and then maintain them. What's the point in having WOF's & regulations if our paid for roads are not up to standard?
If we damage the road, we have to pay for it. If the roads are not up to standards & damage our certified vehicles, they should have to pay to fix our vehicles. The fact they don't is the reason why our roads are of such low quality.
clark20,
Aug 20, 6:53pm
Well some of us have to have low profile, I can't fit smaller wheels over my brakes, so I have 35 profile on the front and 30s on the back (all standard). I have lost a front tyre with a pothole in Maramarua, which bulged the sidewall.
kazbanz,
Aug 21, 4:29am
Actually ya know I figured "drive to the conditions" but on a wet night potholes are often darn hard to see. filling up with water
therafter1,
Aug 21, 4:50am
Correct, they are not always avoidable, in some conditions (dark, raining, glare from oncoming traffic etc) it is virtually impossible to avoid them.
poppy62,
Aug 21, 5:05am
I have vented previously on Roading Contractors. I have read that each 1 metre of highway construction can cost $1m +. Surely at the extortionate $$$ involved, the Govt should be asking for a warranty period from the contractors on their product. Even the repairs are 3rd rate patch up jobs, it's no wonder some NZ roads are comparable to Norfolk Islands roads.
stevexc,
Aug 21, 11:26am
I bet this happens seldomly and this entire thread is a mountain out of a molehill.
therafter1,
Aug 21, 11:38am
After working in a workshop for 13 years that had the MVA and break down recovery contracts for a large rural North Island area I bet you are 100% incorrect . one can only imagine what the numbers look like in the more densely populated areas of the country.
tweake,
Aug 21, 12:33pm
yes, they typically caused in wet weather and its a water filled black hole on a black road. also you do get them in places where you cannot avoid. eg by bridges.
tweake,
Aug 21, 12:38pm
absolutely. they fix one part of the road thats cracking but stop just before where the roads sunken a fair bit where you smash through or have to avoid. fix the bit thats not a problem but ignore the problem bit next to it. got some down the road thats a month old and the tarseal has all lifted up. they probably will not be back to fix it. a nearby town it took years before they bothered to fix it. a few cases on the highway where they waited until people crashed (in a couple of cases people actually died) before they fix it.
tweake,
Aug 21, 12:39pm
pretty common around here. been a bit better of late but we havn't had the usual rain. typically every decent rain the road falls apart and you get cars parked up with broken wheels.
marte,
Aug 21, 1:12pm
I have seen holes that the council refuses to fix, called them daily for a week, then 2-3 times a day. Saw a couple of cars parked beside the hole with ruined tyres because of it.
And then seen the tow truck take away a car with a near removed front left wheel suspension caused by the hole.
tweake,
Aug 21, 2:06pm
i remember one case where after many locals complaining, they (ltsa or whatever they where called 20 years ago) they actually wrote to the local paper (warkworth times) that they would not fix the potholes in the dome (aka death valley) because "they where not on the driving line".
i wonder what they think creates pot holes. dragons ?
bill1451,
Aug 21, 4:10pm
been driving since 1969 and I v,e seen some weird stuff, BUT I must be missing something, WHY oh why would you black out your tailights and headlights, and supposedly still get a WOF.
mrfxit,
Aug 21, 4:13pm
Same reasons they drive with hoodies fully over their heads, Presumed anonymity, you can't see my face therefor you can't identify who's driving
scuba,
Aug 21, 4:27pm
Sorry- they're not that bright- they do it so they look"cool" to their mates
electromic,
Aug 21, 4:30pm
I wanted to take a roading contractor for a ride in my D21 ute, even with 80 profile tyres it is bumpy when unloaded. It does not take long to find a pothole in the Waikato. Actually, the roads in NZ are absolutely rubbish in some places. I had to stop in the Awakino gorge on a wet night in winter because someone forgot to fill up the trench that they had dug. 200mm deep 400mm wide trench is a fail in my book especially with an 80km/h speed limit.
apollo11,
Aug 21, 4:47pm
We had a similar experience on the desert road. the surface of the road had been skimmed off right across the lane, and filled with gravel. Enough of a drop to nearly throw a bunch of us off our motorcycles at 100km/h. We stopped and made some phone calls, and found that some prick had thrown all of the roadworks signs into the scrub.
mrfxit,
Aug 22, 5:53am
Depends if they are homies or boyracers
framtech,
Aug 22, 6:00am
Go for a ride in a light truck and make sure you glue your false teeth in, state of some roods are shocking and even if there are no pot holes, the word flat is not in the roading contractors handbook. As far as lowering cars and fitting low profile tires, this should be banned unless factory items, Even if you think you are a F1 driver you can't get to speeds that require such mods on a stone chip NZ roads, if you think you can you are truely dreaming, funny how a modern WRC rallycar would blow your doors off with a high ride height and high profile tires. There are plenty of expensive sportscars wreaked every summer on our roads.
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