[Nick]

So I don't know what it's like where you all live but the roads around me remind of a time I was on a jeep safari on dirt tracks through the remote hillside towns of Cuba - full of potholes!

Could this "self-healing asphalt" be the answer to our pothole problem?
What are the roads like where you are for potholes?

Article: Could self-healing asphalt end the UK's pothole problem? Source: RAC

[NMNeil]

Here in New Mexico the major roads are well maintained, but in my rural area many of the roads look like the US Air Force uses them for bombing practice.

[Nick]

Blimey, that looks like a tough drive, and definitely worse than my roads lol

[Drivingforfun]

I guess road surfacing in rural USA is an even trickier thing to justify, given the size? I'm assuming there are lots of roads that are tens of miles long and only benefit a handful of people

[Rolebama]

We had a very busy road closed for weeks for resurfacing. The work was given to two companies who did either end of the road. Within days, one end looked like the photo above, and the other end was full of splits or cracks. Both companies were called back to make good, and both just poured hot tar into the imperfections. Our Borough has the habit of using companies who give the cheapest quotes, and have lousy reputations within their chosen professions. The work was carried out last winter, which is obviously the best time to allow the layers to adhere to the one below. Us locals find it great fun to drive there as it is akin to the downhill skiing slaloms as per Winter Olympics.

[Drivingforfun]

@Rolebama I think government bodies have a totally different type of logic when it comes to paying for work to be done

My dad works for the NHS and a plumber colleague was told he couldn't have 16 hrs overtime @ approx. £30/hr to do a job over a Saturday and Sunday because the manager didn't have the budget

The manager had an equivalent manager who worked closely with him who paid for contractors to do the same job for several thousand pounds, because it came out of a different budget, which wasn't authorised to be used to pay payroll staff out of due to conflict of interest

It's something to do with anti corruption and anti-theft; the only theft I see going on is that of the taxpayer

[olduser]

I think, in the days of hand raking tarmac into place, cold tarmac was just too hard to move so it had to be delivered and worked very hot.
Sometimes it may have had diesel added in the mix. (keeps it soft longer but the finished road was slick until the diesel evaporated)
With less traffic, it was also easier to deliver the loads hot from the mixer, on time.

Today, spreading machines require a lot of skill, if the tarmac is not hot enough off the delivery truck the spreading machine ought to work slower giving the machine time to warm the mix up.
But this cost more fuel, and more time.
If they choose to press on instead of getting an even spread it will be lumpy and cold.
When the roller gets to work, the road surface ends up with an uneven density, (it may look flat) the less dense areas are porous, they will leak surface water into the structure, and they are the starting point for the next (new) potholes.

Poring tar into cracks is OK providing the cracks are not too big.
The tar needs the support of the aggregate otherwise it will just flow away, and the crack is open again.
But the cracks suggested a badly laid piece of tarmac, and should have been ripped out, the supporting layer made good (if required) then re laid.

I think it's called progress!

[NMNeil]

Originally Posted by Drivingforfun

I guess road surfacing in rural USA is an even trickier thing to justify, given the size? I'm assuming there are lots of roads that are tens of miles long and only benefit a handful of people

It can get complicated.
We have interstate highways, maintained by the Federal government with almost no cost spared. Then we have State roads, for which there is an almost constant battle to get funding for repairs, and then there's county roads where business takes priority and they plead poverty for all the other badly needed road repairs.
We have a few factory farms near my place and the road from these farms to the milk processing plant is as smooth as a billiard table and gets repaired almost instantly.
There are 5 County Commissioners who decide what roads get repaired, and the Commissioners are all either farmers or ranchers, so join the dots on that one.