Fears have emerged that UK motorists may be at risk from a new strain of mutant potholes (so called “superholes”) capable of inflicting EXXXTREME damage on tyres, wheels, other bits of cars dependent on tyres and wheels for their safe operation, and even on the drivers of those cars themselves.
According to deeply worrying reports in this week’s Bodyshot Magazine, these aggressive new superholes are wreaking havoc up and down the land, with all types of holes “damaging twice as many cars today as they were 10 years ago, according to a new study conducted by the RAC.”
The suggestion is that a continued failure to invest in bringing old-school holes under control has allowed this vicious new generation of superholes to emerge. Some publications, Bankstone News for example, have reported sitings of superholes as deep as 40-50 million metres deep (see previous story)
The Royal Automobile Association study found that the chaps who drive their vans spent almost 1% of their time helping drivers who’d found themselves assailed by holes or superholes in the year to June, compared with less than a half of one per cent during the previous 12-month period.
Dave Busily of RAC hypothesised that “worsening economic times” might be an underlying cause of the neglect that has allowed superholes to emerge,. That and a persistent failure to spend money on “tackling the underlying problem” and “addressing the underlying deficiencies in local roads.”
It is in rural areas, it seems, that superholes have found the most fertile breeding conditions. Whilst the UK’s motorways and dual carriageways often remain passable for several hours at a time, rural roads today are little better than cart-tracks. In some places up to 110% of the road surface is comprised, in whole or in part, of holes.
During periods of EXXXTREME weather, local authorities have sometimes attempted to infill the worst holes with ‘short-term funding’, but gangs of travellers are suspected of chiselling the funding out by night and spending it on ornate glass ornaments, gaudy fabrics and carriage lamps.
If pothole damage continues at the current rate, experts calculate, there will be more holes than road nationwide by the year 2132. Bold and imaginative action is now required,” Busily claims.
Boldness and imagination are always welcome. Or we could just spend more money filling in all those holes and superholes properly with long-term road-surfacing materials of an appropriate specification.
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