Pea gravel

[sunhuntin]

when i went up the paras two weeks ago, there was signs almost every 2 corners screaming 30k. two or 3 loose gravel stones, or maybe some unpainted lines. nothing worth putting up signs for.
hit one patch that went for two corners... all huge lumps of stone the size of a persons thumb. due to all the not needed 30k signs, myself and the cars behind me hit it too fast [bout 50k from memory] totally stupid. signs where they aint needed dumb the senses down. just stick up a sign saying "no road markings" but dont speed limit it... the paras ya cant go fast on anyways!

did hit one patch heading north to kaikoura last year... on the north side of one of those tunnels. couple of meters worth of loose pea stones. no signs on the other side of the tunnel. no warning. if id been going 100k, it would been straight across the road and into the water.

[Sanx]

I had one a while back coming back from Taupo on SH1 just before (going north) Mercer. Lots of signs indicating roadworks, a 60kph speed limit and the generic 'New Seal' sign. It was 9pm and pitch black. Being a good boy who always follows speed limits () I slowed to about 55ish.
Except it wasn't new seal - it was loose metal. Rocks about half the size of your fist on a rough concrete base. I'm not entirely sure how the hell I kept upright. Crawled through the rest of it at about 20kph.
Called TransitNZ when I got home and somehow managed to find someone on duty at night. Gave him a relatively polite earful, and to his credit he did something about it that evening - even called me back up the next morning to tell me he'd dropped the speed limit to 30kph and put up warning signs indicating rough loose metal.
Props also due to the truckie behind me when all this happened. He must have seen me sliding about all over the place because he slammed on his brakes and then tripled the distance between us.

Sunhuntin's also got a point. Every set of roadworks seems to carry a 30k sign. These signs seem to go up days before anything happens, and then hang around long after everything's finished. They even have 30k signs for when roadworks are taking place on side roads. problem is, people see these constantly, see that there's now work going on or no hazard and eventually people just ignore them. If the contractors just used them when they were genuinely required and took them down at night when no-one was working (provided the road was safe), people might pay more attention to them.

[Back Fire]

But if you care to know, The reason they leave the gravel on the road is two reasons.

Compaction - no matter how much you roll it with a roller traffic will do the compaction 10 times better as its 24/7.

and thats why after a couple of weeks theres a nice pair of 2 foot wide tar snakes?

[rok-the-boat]

??? Eh? Wotcha on abart Willis. I should hope that ANY biker can go a whole lot slower than 30kph indefinately without problems. You should be able to ride perfectly comfortably for any distance at less than 5kph let alone 30.

Hey, I used to be able to balance on my bike without moving.

Anyway, what gets me is a 30kph sign on a big open road and no sensible reason except a few bits of gravel or roadworks that don't exist. I find it almost impossible to constrain myself to 30 in such a situation, and so does everyone else, so it would seem. Try reading between the lines ...

[SPman]

Not since they had a judgement on this matter go against them.

...or several...

[peasea]

Lol coming back from Kaiaua a few weeks back there was a shit load of it, unsigned, downhill on the corners for about 3-4km, whata bitch that was.

Went out to Castlepoint a few years back, in the dark, more than a dozen bikes. No sweat until we came to make our exit the next morning. Sharp left-hander, pea gravel everywhere on our side of the road, five off's! There were no signs going in or out and of couse we hadn't seen it on the other side of the road in the night. We weren't going fast either. There were some injuries (my shoulder still plays up) and the local council put it down to "a section of road that has failed". After our immediate complaint we went straight back out to photograph the spot and the road had been swept.

Whaddya do?

[peasea]

what gets me is a 30kph sign on a big open road and no sensible reason except a few bits of gravel or roadworks that don't exist

....and not a worker in sight, but you still get ticketed..........
Irritating.

[jahrasti]

Not since they had a judgement on this matter go against them.

Good cause they are fucken shady

[FROSTY:Me]

I was one of those lucky enough to get coin out of the council.
Short version--At traffic lights on an intersection -pulled round the corner--did a fast sit down in deep gravel.
Called the cops -cops had a spit-cars sliding to a halt on unmarked roadworks/pea gravel
Council paid for all repairs to the bike

[Motu]

I nearly got a ticket from pea gravel - I came through an intersection around the outside of some cars,sideways through the gravel built up in the centre....when the bike hooked up I pulled a wheel stand down West Coast Rd,straight into a Cop who saw the whole thing.We talked bikes for awhile,because he was pretty impressed with the bike I was riding,then told me to tone it down a bit.

You just got to change your attitude on how you approach this stuff.

[kro]

There is a legal precedent for succesfully claiming damages from the council is the hazzard in not clearly signposted.

If you come off in it you can successfully sue - not much use if you are dead - but it has already happened in Wellington.

I think you're right. I know that any contractor who does not have his road side work zone properly signed/coned off, can be fined up to 100k or there abouts, so there is a strong emphasis on site safety for all concerned.

My first road bin was on my RD250 on the first bridge just as you get to Waitakaruru, where the turn off to Miranda is, and they had left that pea metal all over the road, and you could not see where the drifts of it were, against the new road surface, which was in the same metal, so I smacked into the bridge to show how dangerous it was......

[limbimtimwim]

just stick up a sign saying "no road markings" but dont speed limit it... the paras ya cant go fast on anyways!

The Paraparas? Oh yes. Yes you can. That road is always being worked on. Terrible really, it would be one of the best racetra.. I mean roads in the North Island.

But on topic: I have also noticed sometimes one gets a 30km/h sign, and it is for easy to see works. Then a few K down the road, no sign, for works that are obviously part of the same maintenance project. Annoying.

Actually, my biggest peve with roadworks at the moment I have spotted in some places (Esp in the central North Island) is a strange practise of finishing the works, then just leaving the signs there, but sitting in a ditch or turned around. Every time I see a roadworks sign like that I slow down even more, suspecting it is some prank by a bored local.

[NighthawkNZ:Me]

And yes it is a cheap roading, But you can thank the goverment for that one.

I thank the government for every ferking thing

[The Pastor]

I thank them for my $1000 for doing abosutly nothing.

[Ixion]

My particular peeve is that there is often not a "works end" and derestriction sign.

That in itself would not be a major issue. It is usually easy to see that there are no works

But there is another trick. Where there is a works/30kph sign. And obvious stuff going on. Then clear road with no sign of works. For several kilometres. Round a bend or so. "Hm, guess they forgot to put out the end signs. OK , back to 100mumble". Then round another bend , and more works. And after that a works end sign. So technically the bit of clear road in between was subject to the 30kph. But since they often do forget the end signs, how long do you ride with no sign of works before asusming it must be clear now ? I bet the cops love those ones.