The roads are melting!!!

Scruff

Only in ireland. A bit of hot weather comes along and the roads start to melt.
Did a lot of driving in the west this weekend and at times i was driving through puddles of tar. Destroying the tires, picking up stones and flinging them all over the place, just hope the paint work inst too badly marked. It was so bad they even had to grit the roads in places. What do they differently here that the roads cant handle a bit of heat?

Ronan|Raven

Yup agree with you 100% coming home last night from work and it was like sailing on a river of tar. Great for the bodywork then people flying past and sending the few chipped the local coco dumped on the road to attempt to help the problem.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

the soles of my shoes are covered in melted tar

grrr

weehamster

Well weather like this doesnt come around often (pity). Im guessing here :rolleyes: but maybe because its rains often here, road surfaces are designed for wet weather rather than hot?

mike65

Yep meant to post about this yesterday, after I drove along a bit of the N24 near Mooncoin, a truck in the "ghost island" speading loose grit on the melt.

The melt usually occures where the surface is broken so its hardly a suprise this happens!

Mike.

Imposter

Time to take in the roads again Ted.

saobh_ie

Road surfaces, designed? I can only dream. We all know that the ad hoc, half hearted, repairs made to our roads by the councils are terrible, we'd be better off it they didn't bother.

And then you've got the clowns building the new roads that can't even do them up to spec.

DubTony

weehamster wrote:

Well weather like this doesnt come around often (pity). Im guessing here :rolleyes: but maybe because its rains often here, road surfaces are designed for wet weather rather than hot?

I spent two weeks in Florida a few years ago, where it rained solid for 4 days. The only problem with driving was being able to see as sometimes the wipers couldn't clear it.

There was no noticeable deterioration in the road surface. In fact it felt fine even as buckets of rain poured down. I'm sure the tyres on the ****** I was driving were very good, but if they can make roads that don't melt in hot weather and work well in torrential rain in Florida, why can't they do it here.

Name of rental car hidden to avoid embarrassment

dowlingm

DubTony

Roads in FL probably don't have to account for subzero temps much. Probably use more concrete than tarmac.

The real challenge is here in Ontario - peak ambient temp this week 35C (plus plenty of humidity so it "feels like" 41) and it gets down to -25 and change in winter. In Ottawa that's more like -35. Lots of cracks in the road but they don't melt!

Tenshot

A friend's husband is a city road engineer in Minneapolis, which probably has the biggest temperature extremes of anywhere in the US (from -40'F in winter to around 100'F in summer).

Most of the highways there are concrete rather than tarmac, for two reasons: it avoids the problems of melting in high heat, and the surface only needs to be replaced every 15-20 years instead of ~5 years for tarmac.

On the downside, the contrast of white lines on concrete is appalling in bad weather, and they're noisy as hell to drive on... :-(

Formula One tracks are made of tarmac and endure temperature extremes on a regular basis, but don't seem to have problems melting ... do they use a special type of tarmac?

mike65

Tenshot wrote:

On the downside, the contrast of white lines on concrete is appalling in bad weather, and they're noisy as hell to drive on... :-(

I only drive on one concrete road regularly Ballybeg Drive, and am so looking forward to the Outer Ring Road opening in Sept so I won't ever have to use it again.

Mike.

Victor

The issue with concrete roads and temperature are the joints. It very hot weather, slabs an the M11 (London-Cambridge) have been known to pop. Just hope that when in pops that you face a ramp, not a 300mm vertical joint face.

Tenshot wrote:

Formula One tracks are made of tarmac and endure temperature extremes on a regular basis, but don't seem to have problems melting ... do they use a special type of tarmac?

Probably, but they probably don't take the battering of X thousand 40 tonne trucks per day, with copous quantities of chemical Y spilled on it from time to time.

dmeehan

Tenshot wrote:

On the downside, the contrast of white lines on concrete is appalling in bad weather, and they're noisy as hell to drive on... :-(

and also in good weather!
i was driving up the 101 from San Jose to San Francisco one evening and the sun was quite low as it was late. the only way to make out the lanes was to follow the car in front of you!!