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Surfaces are Deceptive

16th November 1956
Page 70
Page 70, 16th November 1956 — Surfaces are Deceptive
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

WHEN judging the skid-resisting proVV pernes of a road, appearances could often be deceptive. Although it might be well known that smooth surfaces—such as wood blocks or polished stone setts—could become slippery in the wet, what was not so often realized was that a rough-looking, coarse-textured surface could degenerate and dis

play treacherous characteristics through the individual stones becoming polished and rounded.

This warning to road users emerged from a paper read on Wednesday, and prepared by Mr. C. G. Giles, B.Sc., A.Inst.P., and Miss Barbara E. Sabey, B.Sc., of the Road Research Laboratory. The subject of the paper was "Accident Reports and Skidding Accident Sites."

In dealing with problems of skidding on wet and icy roads, police reports of accidents could be of great value to the highway engineer, the paper said.

In 1954 there were over 13,000 personal-injury accidents in which vehicles were reported as having skidded on wet roads, representing 23 per cent. of the total number of accidents occurring under wet conditions. The proportion of accidents involving skidding on dry roads was only about 6 per cent.

Skidding was associated mainly with the busiest roads; skidding accidents showed a decided tendency to cluster at the difficult sites, such as roundabouts, bends, hills and junctions on those roads. In some areas up to 40 per cent. of all skidding accidents reported in wet weather were clustered in that way.

Merely by improving the skidding resistance of the road surfaces at those places, big reductions in accidents had been achieved, amounting, at the 20 sites studied, to an average of 90 per cent, in the number of skidding accidents reported in wet weather, and an overall reduction of 45 per cent. in the number of accidents of all kinds. The saving in the cost of accidents each year could well have been 10 times the expense of treating the road surface.

Forty per cent. of all the accidents involving skidding on icy roads occurred between 7 a.m. and Ii a.m. The greatest benefits could be derived if the roads were treated or gritted before 7 a.m.


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