Going Green: Make small changes to help preserve roads

I got a flat tyre from going over a pot hole the other day, is it me or are the roads getting worse? You’re not wrong unfortunately but – as with a lot of the UK infrastructure, budget cuts have meant there’s less money to go around and fix some of the infrastructure that desperately needs it.

You’re not wrong unfortunately but – as with a lot of the UK infrastructure, budget cuts have meant there’s less money to go around and fix some of the infrastructure that desperately needs it.

Last year potholes and the damage caused by them hit a five-year high with just under 630,000 of the holes reported to councils across the UK. There are two issues though – yes there’s less money to repair them but they’re happening more frequently because of the extreme weather patterns caused by climate change.

First we had floods at the start of the winter, which gave way to the big freeze and colder temperatures and potential snow.

Extreme weather patterns, due to climate change, affect our roads. Photo: Adobe

The grip of winter always seems at the worst at this time of year – the balmy climes of summer feel like they were forever ago and it feels a long time until spring will start.

While it’s a typical time to hunker down and wait for the sun, the roads are sometimes at their worst at this time of year; intense downpours followed by freezing temperatures, freeze water in pot holes and road fissures and cracks turning them into ice which then end up cracking the roadways and making pot holes bigger.

Approximately 1.5 million potholes are filled annually in the UK, that’s roughly one every 21 seconds.

As a result, road conditions have worsened and there are now over 7,000 miles fewer of ‘good condition’ roads in the UK.

The amount being spent on highway maintenance as a result of climate change is increasing too. In recent years as much as 20 percent of the carriageway maintenance budget was spent as a direct result of climate change affecting the roads.

The National Highways Agency have also identified areas where climate change can affect infrastructure around roads and highways too. With increased rainfall in winter and flooding becoming more frequent and severe, there’s a real risk of high river flows continually washing away the beds surrounding the support structure of bridges. There’ve been several winters where local bridges in villages have been closed because of flood waters forcing villagers to travel hours to get to the other side of a bridge they relied on.

There are things drivers can do to mitigate their impact though. Avoid buying and driving heavy SUVs.

Using public transport where you can, reduce the number of cars and vehicles on the road, doubling up journeys where you can – if you’re doing the school run, do the errands you need to get done at the same time.

Lift sharing for events, such as sports fixtures can mean one vehicle rather than three using the same roads – if all kids teams on a weekend practiced this, imagine the difference it’d make.

They’re small changes but if everyone did them, they’d help preserving the roads which are already under duress and reduce the carbon pollution that is creating climate change in the first place.