Bad roads

Some night on last month, my friend drove me home by his car after we had meal together in town. When he was driving on Grafton Road, suddenly the car began to joint so badly that my head hit on the front seat. It turned out that there was a big hole on the ground. He failed to see it because it was really dark at that time. This incident made me really angry because I remebered that the section we were driving on had just finished reconstucting several weeks ago, how come there  still  left such a big hole!


As the time went by, this little accident totally passed out of my mind. However, last week, when I was chatting with another friend, she complained a car travel she just had days before, which was also happened on that road. Her story remined me of my own accident last month. Therefore I went to that section, and took some photos to see if the road was still unfixed.

Hole on Grafton Road, taken by Lydia Zou

Rough surface of Grafton Road, taken by Lydia Zou

When I was taking photos of Grafton Road, I noticed that the road condition of Grafton Bridge was really poor as well. Photos are:

Grafton Bridge , taken by Lydia Zou

Hole on Grafton Bridge, taken by Lydia Zou

From the third picture, we can see the indentations that are left by buses and private vechicles passed by. It is clear that the Council did not do the maintenance work really well since the Grafton Bridge was just reopened two years ago.

In his article "road conditions and auto accidents", Aaron Larson said that there were three factors would affect road conditions and might play a roal in a motor vehicle accident. They are: road design, poor maintainence and bad weather. Road design can contribute to car accidents by making it more difficult to see other vehicles, creating hazardous pinch points, presenting dangerous obstacles for drivers or increasing suspectibility to weather conditions. The failure to proper maintain a road, which include the accumulation of debris on the road, the presence of potholes or other wear and deterioriation or fading of road sign can also contribute to accidents. Accumulation of water, slush and snow cam make road surfaces become slippery, and can present hazards to motorists.

It is difficult to tell which factor of these three caused the poor conditions of these roads. But one certain thing is that these should be the Council and road construction contractors' responsibilities to provide high quality road to vehicles users and pedestrians, and to maintain these roads well. Both of the roads got reconstructed within the short period and both have problems right after the project finished, their issues reflected the inproper design of the road and the lack of monitoring, which need to be taken into consideration by the Department of Transport and its relevant organisations.

 Reference:

Larson, A. 2005-2011. Road conditions and auto accidents. [Online]. Available at: http://www.expertlaw.com/library/car-accidents/road-conditions.html