Cheap solution that never lasts, horrible to cycle on and chips paint off your car. Probably wont make a difference but worth a try. http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/67408

All over my cycle routes at the moment! Seen a Corsa backwards through a hedge the other morning, evil stuff.

Trouble is if you ban this and repair roads ‘properly’ your council tax will go through the roof. If your happy to have roads closed why not just avoid surfaced dressed roads until they are swept properly(usually a day or two later)

Fork crown on my road bike has got some nice scratches in it thanks to this stuff sticking to the tyre then getting stuck between the tyre and the underside of the crown.

Round where I live when they ‘dress’ the road, the don’t fix the holes first – all you get is gravel filled holes. Once the roads are swept you still have gravel filled holes.

How do you know it rarely lasts….. If it was such a poor solution surely they would have stopped using it years ago… I think the really shocking thing is how poor the roads would be if they did no maintenance as the petition surely is suggesting as I don’t see where the money to rebuild the structure of every road in uk is going to come from ….. (Civil Engineer, currently working in highways)

Nothing wrong with surface dressing (that’s its proper name….) at all. They make a lot better job of it these days and it’s pretty much always an improvement IME.
I won’t be signing.

How do you know it rarely lasts

Cos I’ve seen it done and lived with it. I don’t even know what it’s meant to achieve. Bad road surface is no better after tarring and chipping, it’s just a bad surface with a loose surface. Then it starts to wear off and gets even worse than it was before. Then in 18 months it’s gone, if you are lucky.

Nothing wrong with surface dressing (that’s its proper name….) at all. They make a lot better job of it these days and it’s pretty much always an improvement IME.

Absolute rubbish!! At least around here. It is dangerous when it goes down and you can see it wearing away. It is a short-term fix to a long-term problem.

No. It’s not rubbish at all. Quit the hysterical BS.

Lat time I drove through the tomintoul road they had done this at Bridge of Brown (very steep!) and I felt so sorry for the motorcyclist coming down. Would have been hell on a road bike.

Nothing hysterical about my post, or views on it. It’s just a very bad surface and should not be used on busy, public roads.

Doesn’t cause too many problems round here. Only takes a couple of weeks for it to settle in properly.

Can we have a petition to stop any more petitions?

Even when it does settle down, it’s still a very poor surface.

And, FYI, it’s not tar. Tar hasn’t been used for around 30 years. It’s bitumen. Different stuff entirely.

Proper attention to design and execution has provided surface dressing lifetimes well in excess of 10 years, even on very heavily trafficked sites.

From here – http://www.rsta-uk.org/surface-dressing.htm

I blame the Engineers……..

They would say that, wouldn’t they.

wirral and cheshire seem to employ a firm that somehow melts the road and raises the level so all grids are now sunken, and then they send a man out with a white can of spray paint he marks a white box round the grids, then another idiot or few come out and dig out a groove all round the grid but in the box ,and then leave the slots for 2 weeks.

Still what do I know after 20 years working on the roads, and in construction in general. Bugger all I suppose……
I’ve actually tested the spread rate of surface dressing a few times.

I’m not terribly bothered about surface dressing – it’s crap to start with, but does smoothen off eventually – but I wish councils would do something about contractors who dig a trench then resurface it really badly, so it’s horrible and lumpy… do they ever say “no, that’s rubbish, do it again”? I wish they would…

Awwww bless. I’m just passing on real-world experience of the roads around here they have done it on.

Proper attention to design and execution has provided surface dressing lifetimes well in excess of 10 years, even on very heavily trafficked sites.

Note the word ‘proper’.
Also

When to Surface Dress
Before the road surface deteriorates to the stage at which expensive major patching and/or reconstruction is required.

This is my gripe, dressing is being done locally without fixing the underlying faults – the result is crap.

Proper attention to design and execution has provided surface dressing lifetimes well in excess of 10 years, even on very heavily trafficked sites

minor roads in the new forest area get it – not heavily traveled but they develop noticeable grooving after a couple of years, leaving a quite slick surface where chips have been forced either out or down into the bitumen 😉 . That develops further and by the time it gets redone (I’m guessing 5-7 yrs or so) there’s 4 stripes about 18 inches wide where the wheels run with very little “chip” at all.

(this is a good development IMO as a biker as it’s a faster and comfier strip for me but presumably for cars increases tramlining and potentially skidding as there’s unlikely to be much grip left and possible even collection of water/snow in the depressions during bad weather)

Really? A government petition? About surface dressing? It’s not that big a deal, surely?
Is it that hard to drive at 10mph for a few days while it beds in?
I think the problem is not the surface dressing, but the idiots who belt down it spraying gravel all over everything, probably whilst moaning about how it scratches their car…

If done properly it should last year’s, agreed sometimes the road is knackered before they put it down. It’s a bit like staining your windows when the wood is rotten

They’ve recently done loads of the roads round here (Peak District) with it. It’s not too bad when properly bedded in but I went over Long Hill a while ago not realising that the entire Whaley Bridge side had been done the previous day. 3 miles of descending at 15mph while the bike slithered around underneath me spraying gravel everywhere and cutting up the tyres. 🙁

You have to wonder how France and Spain can produce miles of gorgeous smooth highway, resurfaced every couple of years (every year in the Alps and Pyrenees after winter) while in the UK we can barely manage to fill a pothole properly.

And even when it is resurfaced properly, you can pretty much guarantee that some utility company or other will be along 2 weeks later to dig it all up and batter the crap out of it.

Yeah it’s not great but only for a week or two while it beds in then it’s back to bring a normal road surface.

Our new by pass which was an almost perfect road has just been ruined with this, poor material laid badly.

Have come across loads of newly laid ones recently, and it pisses me right off. Still picking tar sorry, bitumen out of my tyres weeks later, and having to stop every couple of minutes to pick the stones out is more than a pain in the ass. I’ve also seen a lot of badly surfaced roads dressed, potholes included, which seems to defeat the object of doing it in the first place. I’d be happy to pay more for properly surfaced roads that will last for years / decades to come. Building long term infrastructure that will benefit future generation. Not this sticking plaster shite. [/rant]

Yeah, I don’t think much of it.

that corsa backward thru a hedge would be there due to the skill and concentration of the driver, not the road repair.

i seriously doubt the french resurface the alpine roads annually. post winter repairs maybe, where the snowploughs booger up the surface.

the italians definitely don’t.

They do it because highways engineers are obsessed about skid resistance. It’s not easy to do well; you have to make an emulsion of water, bitumen and additives and get everything right so that the granite chips stick well and the stuff goes off properly. All it does it replace the wearing surface and improve friction.

They did my road with it a while back, and did a proper job- repaired holes and cracks first then iced it. Made a big effort to clear off the loose stuff after too. Better than just patching, and far faster than a whole resurface, total win really.

Just seems to be an approach that’s really open to bad use but it’d be daft to throw it out entirely because of that. More recently we got the worst bunch of spot repairs I’ve ever seen but I don’t think we should ban digging holes and fixing things. And the bottom line, it may be this or nothing.

It’s used because it’s a cheap and easy fix for the council. Where councils have contracted out road maintenance to large contractors on long term pfi type contracts it’s used because it provides better margins for them. It’s only ever meant to be a temporary fix though. I’ve said before on here that most councils have moved away from the idea of trying to maintain and improve roads to managing their deterioration instead. They ain’t got no money.

Edit: if you think surface dressing is bad, wait until you see how much money is being wasted on mobile pot hole repair machines (£140k a pop) which manage to make an even worse job of repair than what most contractors can manage manually (and that is saying something!.

Its a cheap fix.

Anyone working in the industry is doing it so opinion is worthless.

Maybe it is fine if done properly, but around my way they don’t. The road I Rose to work has been done twice in 3 years. They only do patch repairs or short second and don’t address the underlying issues. So the road so has potholes and starts to fall apart quickly. I now have a steep corner that 4 weeks after patch repairs still had loose gravel which is dangerous IMO. It’s also a mistake surface to cycle on, so much harder work than decent tarmac.

Apologies posting from phone gone a bit wrong there.

Council look for cost cutting measures over a short term basis – year on year budget –

Those in the industry are on to a winner as the surface will not last and will need to be done again sooner than when done properly. Road are done by big companies with vast profits and share holders etc. Its all about fleecing the public purse.

Council look good because the have not increased council tax
Civil Engineer companies maximise profits

There is no long term measurement of the actual cost to the public.

Anyway its bloody horrible stuff to cycle on and knocks 2mph off your speed.

They did my road last week

Complete nightmare, tars still sticky, it’s being walked in the house, I’ve counted 10 stone chips on the car and most of the gravel ends up down the grid

Half arsed to say the least

I’m going to lodge a claim for the damage to my car

Still what do I know after 20 years working on the roads, and in construction in general. Bugger all I suppose……
I’ve actually tested the spread rate of surface dressing a few times.

Me too, nothing wrong with it when done properly. The trouble is a lot of authorities don’t design it properly, and don’t carry out sufficient testing during construction for it to work.

Most premium dressing carried out on major roads is very good as all the risk is taken by the contractor.

I agree it’s not nice to ride on when it’s new, but it does make the road last longer and shouldn’t be viewed as an alternative to resurfacing; rather a means of prolonging the life of the road.

Surface dressing is used to improve the skid resistance of a surface (polished stone value or PSV). When used correctly it is a very cost effective method of improving the surface without planing and resurfacing. In these days of cut backs and efficiency savings it is going to be used more and more to extend the service life of carriageways. You might not like it but it’s been used for a long long time and will continue to be used despite some knee jerk petition. We’d be getting hundreds of petitions about the about of road closures and delays because full resurfacing work has to be carried out. Or not because there just not the money for it. People crashing on it because there’s loads of stone down need to slow down a bit. Why do you think they put loads of 10mph signs out warning you? Not because they have a surplus of signs that’s for sure.