Road surfaces: do they contribute to our high accident rate?

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Road surfaces: do they contribute to our high accident rate?

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#2830198 10-Dec-2021 22:42

SheriffNZ:

Again that's a soft control a bit like the ban use a hand held device while driving. I see people texting and driving everyday. Making rules has limited utility without effective supervision and enforcement, which is expensive.

My car has a semi-engineered solution to seat belt use which is to make it unpleasant to drive without seatbelt (beep, beep, beep...) Maybe vehicle safety should be more engineered. Modern marine propulsion engines use limp mode for engine protection. If a serious fault is detected, the the engine will only operate up to limited RPM. This prevents damage but still allows the boat to be maneuvered (a total power loss would be unsafe).

Perhaps cars could utilise limp mode for safety failures: If critical safety systems aren't used or aren't operational (seatbelts, ABS SRS, airbags) the vehicle goes into limp mode and won't exceed 30kmh.

I was driving my fathers Mazda 3 over the last weekend. It has a feature where the camera's in it recognise the speed limit signs and display the speed limit on the Heads Up Display. It seemed to work most of the time. Why can't our cars be governed to the speed limit of a particular section of road if we have the technology to register the speed limits on a given road. It's not the be all as a solution but it's a start?

I know electric bikes are governed in some countries (maybe here in NZ). I've never understood why cars can't be subject to the same requirements (I appreciate though there is limited (or no) political will for this solution).

Mercedes have this. If you have one with radar cruise control it can be set to use the speed limit and change it automatically.

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#2830355 11-Dec-2021 11:59

Visiting a former neighbour in Melbourne a few years ago and his car GPS told him what the speed limit was. He said it was necessary because the speed limits changed capriciously (seemingly) and the streetscape there is very cluttered, especially with signs. I think he subscribed to a service for that.

Regards, John Little

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#2831167 13-Dec-2021 08:41

SheriffNZ:

I know electric bikes are governed in some countries (maybe here in NZ). I've never understood why cars can't be subject to the same requirements (I appreciate though there is limited (or no) political will for this solution).

I'm sure car speed could be governed electronically. The down side is that if a person makes a mistake and needs a burst of speed to get themselves out of trouble, they don't have it.

Mike

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#2836517 21-Dec-2021 20:43

Bung:
Geektastic:

That is very interesting - thanks. I wonder why they used a US road design manual instead of say the UK one, where at least the traffic goes the correct way?

Waka Kotahi say they look to Australia "The Transport Agency use the Austroads guide to road design as the primary reference guideline for our road network. Links to the Austroads(external link) guides and supplementary guidance are available on the Geometric design page of the NZ Transport Agency website."

I was told recently that our roads used to be built to suit the local geotechnical conditions (different methods/design considerations for different regions) but some time ago LTSA or what ever they were called at the time had some new engineers arrive from overseas and they adopted a national standard that doesn't suit many local conditions.

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#2836520 21-Dec-2021 20:54

Technofreak:

I was told recently that our roads used to be built to suit the local geotechnical conditions (different methods/design considerations for different regions) but some time ago LTSA or what ever they were called at the time had some new engineers arrive from overseas and they adopted a national standard that doesn't suit many local conditions.

No, that wouldn't be true, but we do simplify to some extent but at a general level road pavements are designed using mechanistic analysis for collector class roads and higher. This is essentially based on the premise that you want zero shear at the subgrade (natural ground of the road formation) as once that goes, your entire pavement is toast. Geotechnical conditions play heavily in to these calculations and we use computer software to simulate the modulus of elestasticty etc. of the various materials as they work together. We generally want the heavier, gruntier pavements on the higher volume roads and we can tolerate less strong pavements on lower volume roads, but really its the heavy commercial vehicle percentage that drives the design.

NZ did have some issues ago where pavements where failing but when investigated the sub-base was not damaged, turned out to be the best quality aggregates we have are suspectible to rolling fatigue in the pavement matrix and this caused quite a few issues on the state highways. This is now a known result and so the materials are tested to ensure that we know their limits.

Our main concern is bitumen pricing and the carbon costs of building road pavements and surfaces now.

Technofreak

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#2836529 21-Dec-2021 21:16

Benoire:

Technofreak:

I was told recently that our roads used to be built to suit the local geotechnical conditions (different methods/design considerations for different regions) but some time ago LTSA or what ever they were called at the time had some new engineers arrive from overseas and they adopted a national standard that doesn't suit many local conditions.

No, that wouldn't be true, but we do simplify to some extent but at a general level road pavements are designed using mechanistic analysis for collector class roads and higher. This is essentially based on the premise that you want zero shear at the subgrade (natural ground of the road formation) as once that goes, your entire pavement is toast. Geotechnical conditions play heavily in to these calculations and we use computer software to simulate the modulus of elestasticty etc. of the various materials as they work together. We generally want the heavier, gruntier pavements on the higher volume roads and we can tolerate less strong pavements on lower volume roads, but really its the heavy commercial vehicle percentage that drives the design.

NZ did have some issues ago where pavements where failing but when investigated the sub-base was not damaged, turned out to be the best quality aggregates we have are suspectible to rolling fatigue in the pavement matrix and this caused quite a few issues on the state highways. This is now a known result and so the materials are tested to ensure that we know their limits.

Our main concern is bitumen pricing and the carbon costs of building road pavements and surfaces now.

Perhaps not a national standard then but there were changes made that weren't for the better. One area in the discussion I was party to was the condition of the roads in theTaranaki area compared to say the Manawatu.

While not the same issue there was also mention of the deterioration in the condition of parts of SH 43 after Transit took over the maintenance of that stretch of highway from the local authority.

Still on the topic of the roads in Taranaki I drove the recently reopened section of SH3 after it had been closed for about 3 months for major roadworks. If that's the best that can be done by closing a major highway for road works then someone needs to be taken out and shot. The surface was absolutely shocking. Worse than it was before the work was done.

I'm afraid I'm not impressed with the condition of many of the new roads in this country either. Case in point being parts of the Waikato Expressway.

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#2836536 21-Dec-2021 21:33

Technofreak:

Perhaps not a national standard then but there were changes made that weren't for the better. One area in the discussion I was party to was the condition of the roads in theTaranaki area compared to say the Manawatu.

While not the same issue there was also mention of the deterioration in the condition of parts of SH 43 after Transit took over the maintenance of that stretch of highway from the local authority.

Still on the topic of the roads in Taranaki I drove the recently reopened section of SH3 after it had been closed for about 3 months for major roadworks. If that's the best that can be done by closing a major highway for road works then someone needs to be taken out and shot. The surface was absolutely shocking. Worse than it was before the work was done.

I'm afraid I'm not impressed with the condition of many of the new roads in this country either. Case in point being parts of the Waikato Expressway.

Now maintenance is a major area of concern for me. We spend significant sums of money on new roads, I mean the roads class in the NLTF and GPS, but very little on the ongoing maintenance of the network... Capex for new roads far out strips renewals and maintenance which is what is used to renew and ensure the roads are kept in good condition, as a result NZTA/WK expect local authorities to 'sweat' their assets and refuse to fund anything that maintains a high level of service as they call it gold plating, ultimately in my opinion, this leads to early deterioation of the various surfaces and pavements but no budget to deal with them. If trucks or citizens where forced to pay the true cost of running the road network then we would not have so many roads!

Technofreak

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#2845590 9-Jan-2022 11:41

Not quite about road surfaces but about roads in general. It hit the mark in my opinion.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/steven-joyce-holiday-road-toll-too-high-safer-regional-roads-urgently-needed/PDG2QCJ2XUVI7HTZCFELKWGIRY/

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#2845599 9-Jan-2022 12:25

Paywall. All I can see is Joyce says the holiday road toll is too high and Joyce proposes spending money on roads in the 'regions' to fix it. I'm not sure those two things really add up but maybe the article has a better argument.

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#2845607 9-Jan-2022 12:50

Where will the money come from to pay for these upgrades?
Joyce used to be a player in a government that preached low taxation.
He's hasn't got the regional roads he wants but he's got the regional roads he deserves.

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Benoire

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#2845615 9-Jan-2022 13:14

Joyce, as part of the former national goverment led by Key, invested a significant sum of money in to the RONS programme at the expense of the regional roads now being called unsafe. I do not believe him at all given the statistics really haven't changed and these roads should have been upgraded with the RONS money instead.

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#2845658 9-Jan-2022 15:59

He makes several important points in my opinion

The government seems to be focused on speed reduction as the primary means of improving road safety when there are better long term ways of doing this. He goes on to say that where speed is a factor in an accident there is usually other factors involved as well with other road rules being broken. Improved compliance desn't go hand in hand with reducing the speed limit. He also suggests the reduced speed limits will further frustrate drivers leading to other issues.

The money being paid by motorists for roading is being siphoned off for use elsewhere. The money is already there.

Out of the 11,000 km of roads in New Zealand there is only about 700 km of regional highways that really need dealing to as this is where the significant amount of travelling takes place. In other words it's not as big a job as you might think.

This government hasn't started one new roading project. He list four projects that badly need doing for the benefit of the regions and the economy, Warkworth to Wellsford, Tauranga to KatiKati, Cambridge to Tirau and Rolleston to Ashburton

He gives the government credit for the median barrier work that is taking place but even then they've only done 1/10 of their target.

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#2846078 10-Jan-2022 13:04

Geektastic:

I don't regard that as a solution: I regard that as a threat.

Once cars are outside our control, the government can decide who gets to drive, when and where if they so wish. I wouldn't be so keen if I were you.

Not wrong. As it is, many police forces are pushing for the ability to be able to remotely disable any vehicle they choose. I rather think I'll pass on that feature thanks.

Geektastic:

I am astonished that anyone in 2021 does not wear a seatbelt. Waaaaay back in the 1970's in the UK when I were a lad, we had a hugely successful advertising campaign with Jimmy Savile which had the strapline "Clunk, click every trip". The campaign ran everywhere - even in the children's comics I was reading at the time.

Even today I can still hear that line in my head every time I get in a car. The only reason not to wear a seatbelt is because you want a Darwin Award.

In New Zealand, it was actually Ronald McDonald in those seatbelt ads. Now that you've mentioned it, I now have that song burned into my brain (thanks!)

Anyone over the age of about 30 probably remembers - "kids you must remember every time you're in the car, and it makes no difference if you're going near or far..."

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#2846079 10-Jan-2022 13:05

SheriffNZ:

I was driving my fathers Mazda 3 over the last weekend. It has a feature where the camera's in it recognise the speed limit signs and display the speed limit on the Heads Up Display. It seemed to work most of the time. Why can't our cars be governed to the speed limit of a particular section of road if we have the technology to register the speed limits on a given road. It's not the be all as a solution but it's a start?

Because we really don't have that technology. My car has the speed limits of many roads which it displays on the Heads Up Display based on GPS. I would say a good 75% of the time, it's utterly wrong - on an overpass, it will read the speed of the road beneath, it has no capability to handle variable speed limits, it ends up utterly wrong in tunnels.

Even those based on cameras end up being totally wrong half the time - turning a corner from a residential street with a 50km/hr speed limit onto a main (st)road with a 60km/hr speed limit, there is no sign to read so it would assume that the speed limit remains at 50km/hr and be wrong. They also have serious issues reading variable speed limit signs and handling lane control (overhead) signs.

SheriffNZ

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#2846313 10-Jan-2022 16:58

Kyanar:

SheriffNZ:

I was driving my fathers Mazda 3 over the last weekend. It has a feature where the camera's in it recognise the speed limit signs and display the speed limit on the Heads Up Display. It seemed to work most of the time. Why can't our cars be governed to the speed limit of a particular section of road if we have the technology to register the speed limits on a given road. It's not the be all as a solution but it's a start?

Because we really don't have that technology. My car has the speed limits of many roads which it displays on the Heads Up Display based on GPS. I would say a good 75% of the time, it's utterly wrong - on an overpass, it will read the speed of the road beneath, it has no capability to handle variable speed limits, it ends up utterly wrong in tunnels.

Even those based on cameras end up being totally wrong half the time - turning a corner from a residential street with a 50km/hr speed limit onto a main (st)road with a 60km/hr speed limit, there is no sign to read so it would assume that the speed limit remains at 50km/hr and be wrong. They also have serious issues reading variable speed limit signs and handling lane control (overhead) signs.

Fine. Nothing stoping them governing cars to 100km/hr though.

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