I see at the budget the government allocated £900m for road repairs.

Yet in West Berks, I barely see a penny of that being spent.

Some roads are horrific; ever tried cycling through Brimpton or along Enborne Rd? The level crossing at Thatcham itself has 3 massive holes now.

When is this going to be sorted out? Just paid my road tax £140 a year now plus record gas prices of now at least £6 a gallon (mostly tax). Can someone take my tax in these cases AND FIX OUR ROADS SOON!!

Add Fir tree lane and The old Bath road Speen to that list. Both are appalling.

I don't have a problem, the Bentley just floate over the roadsurface ! Strange.

Do you have, or have you had a Maserati?

A4 between Thatcham and Newbury is very poor too, especially when it rains as pedestrians get soaked!!!

The Roads Infrastructure needs £10,000,000,000 spent on it by estimates to bring it up to standard. Unfortunately we don't have £10 Billion spare at the moment. Too busy fighting wars and giving aid to countries such as Pakistan.

Who are spending their money on maintaining a nuclear weapon.

Agreed. It's time this Country started looking after number one rather than being interfering busy bodies. We still have this hangover imperialistic mentality of being the Worlds police. We are not and cannot afford to be.

Yeh, let them pay to fix their own pot holes.

I immediately had a vision of a covered walkway from Newbury to Thatcham,

Don't you think there might be more to our 'aid' than meets the eye?

I don't know about cycling, but driving along Enborne Road is a lot better now since they resurfaced it.

Haha, that would be nice, a tunnel!!! In reality, it's the massive puddles and pot holes which are the issue!!!

I have just forked out £600 on my car - all suspension related and damaged alloys - in the garage they just shook their heads and said pot-holes !

Well, if you will drive around like Bo & Luke Duke.....

My, my.... shook head and said "potholes". Did he have a twin brother who worked there who shook his head and said "Speed Humps...." ?
Biggest scam going... If in doubt replace the suspension or blame any slightly iffy work (that isn't really needed in truth) in those pesky speed hump or potholes My brother-in-law works in a local garage and the manager is always pushing to squeeze that extra bit of work out of every car that comes in.

Perhaps you should drive a bit slower?

In the main, I find speed humps to be a greater 'nuisance' than pot holes.

It actually has four pretty massive holes now. Been there for weeks. When I've phoned and asked about them apparently Highways have been pushing Network Rail to get them filled but are tied to when Network Rail can arrange a road closure and diversion (overnight when the trains aren't running) The holes are in the length of road between the barriers so are not WBC responsibility and they cannot work on them. It's all down to the railways on that one.. There are signs up saying an overnight closure is imminent so hopefully will be sorted soon though.

Sod the cyclists.... they don't pay to use the roads anyway so should quit their moaning....

And then when the railway is closed for essential repairs and there is a replacement bus service people moan about that!

Im actually quite annoyed, I was driving towards the level crossing in Thatcham in my 1971 mini clubman hit a pothole, and part of my rear subframe snapped. A new 1 is over a grand.

But it's not like I pay road tax anyway!!

Oh c'mon.... it IS 40 years old, about time it was sent to the scrappy (they're a danger to other tax paying road users these old jallopies that keep falling apart at every little bump....... )
Whatever people might say about "They don't make 'em like they used to" even good old motors slapped together at Longbridge all those years ago don't last forever...

Anyway, you can in fact buy NEW cars these days...

I thnk it's a shame that happened but at 50 years old I would say yours is a "non standard" vehicle that shouldn't be taken into account by roadbuilders. However a pothole is a pothole.....

40 years old.... (unless my maths is REALLY crap....)

If your vehicle is damaged by driving over a level crossing then :-
a. you were going too fast
b. your vehicle was faulty
or
c. you jumped the lights and were either hit by the barriers or hit by a train!

Although you might be right, he said, "I was driving towards a level crossing"?

Sorry, my mistake, fat fingers on the keyboard!

But the design is 50+ years old......

That's true and I stand corrected
However in his reply, Spartacus then went on to talk about problems with the level crossing itself.

The level crossing has always been some form of hazard. It is an extraordinary bumpy surface and seems to suffer no end for it. I presume it is deliberately made uneven?

Hooray!! The potholes on the level crossing have been fixed and filled in....

The problem with this level crossing (and there are many) is that it's located on a bend in the track and there are two tracks. As it's on a high speed Intercity route the outside rails of both tracks are slightly higher than the inside rails to assist fast trains round the bend. Consequently, because the rails are uneven height, this level crossing isn't exactly 'level'....

There's nothing that can be done about it. Trains are getting faster and if anything need higher outside rails at bends... The difference in height is only marginal but noticeable in a car.....

Still, there have been many that have decided to cross at speed when the barrier lights are flashing and have come a cropper. If anything's 'deliberate' there I'd say that it's the layby as that's where people can pull up and go back to retrieve their exhausts after their mad rush over the crossing...

Agreed. The hazard is there to be seen and with more than enough advance warning.

The railway technical term for this is "cant".
(Blimey!, the software let me say that )