I spent the first half of this week driving around in Europe at reasonably decent speeds in a Nissan GT-R. It is not the most soothing of cars in which to cover big distances, it must be said.
I drove through France, Belgium, Italy, Austria and Germany, accruing a total of just over 3000 miles in four fairly manic days, and yet the entire time I kept thinking how wrong I’d been about the Nissan’s ride.
In Europe, on a mixture of motorways, the equivalent of some A and B-roads and the occasional Z-road such as the insane Stelvio Pass, the GT-R was the perfect weapon. As is often the case on epic long journeys such as this, I fell right back in love with it as a result.
And yet the moment I drove off the ferry in it at Dover and started driving again on English roads, the GT-R felt, relatively speaking, like an absolute shed. Its ride became instantly dreadful again, and all the noises from the transaxle and the rear brakes all came flooding right back.
But it wasn’t the car that was the problem; it was our roads. And the further I drove the GT-R back in England, the worse they – and it – seemed.
So why is it that our roads are so very rubbish here in dear old Blighty? Why do we put up with such appalling road surfaces, and how come there are so many badly repaired bits and road works all over the place nowadays?
I spent some time discussing this with a chap from Prodrive a few years ago, and he was convinced that the reason our roads are so very awful is that we have a unique substrate here in England. His theory is that because our climate involves so much water, our road surfaces can’t help but deteriorate eventually, no matter how much money we might throw at them.
But surely England isn’t the only country in which it rains rather a lot? Every time I’ve ever been to Holland it has been hosing it down, for example, and in Scotland – where the roads are miles better than they are in England – there are places in which it hasn’t stopped raining since 1843.
No, the reason why our roads are so rubbish in Engand is because, fundamentally, we don’t spend enough money on making them better. Or building them well enough in the first place.
Instead, we spend our money on making everyone else's roads in Europe better, leaving just a few pounds here and there to make do as best we can with our own roads. Plus, our highways tend to be rather busy here in England, so even if we were to perform some kind of nationwide, Hitler-style rebuilding operation, the entire country would grind to a halt instantly, and we’d all be penniless as a result.
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if you meet a road layer who
if you meet a road layer who takes pride in his work shake his hand, it will be a rare occassion.
Even rarer will be meeting a highways planning department official who will set high standards for road layers/maintenance companies and then make sure they meet those standards. And woe betide you when bad roads are the cause of damage to your car or injury to a road user, forget speaking to Highways, they have written the book on dodging responsibility.
And it is nothing to do with a lack of funds, its to do with the wreckless way they spend our money on poor quality construction and downright negligence when it comes to repair.
Can the last one to leave please turn off the lights!
Many years ago I got chatting to a man on a train, it turned out he was a road planner. I asked him why he was on a train; he replied jokingly have you seen the state of the roads! And that is a true story. It kind of says it all, no one really cares enough about anything anymore.
I think the answer is stop pretending we are European and learning to stand on our own two feet again. Maybe then people will start having pride in things they do, and things they make or maybe it's too late and we are slowly decaying and rotting away!
If you think any politician is going to live up to any promise, you really are not living in the real world. Despite Peter Cavalli saying we couldn't do it for an hour, he is possibly right, but why would you want to? Controversially, it is not the politicians who are at fault, the only thing wrong with this country are the majority of the population!
roads
I moved to Sweden 15 years ago, from near Boston, Massachusetts, where compared to Sweden, the roads are deplorable. The roads here, for the most part, are very good. They are built well and well maintained. Yes, we have our potholes, but not to the degree I experienced for many years in, Massachusetts. Here, in a country of about ten million, the size of California, one can actually call driving a truly enjoyable pleasure.