Pothole-spotter app aims to stop arse ache

A simple way to report potholes which need repairing means you can now see how well, or badly, your local council is doing keeping the roads safe. FillThatHole.org.uk has been running for a few years and allows cyclists, or anyone else, to report potholes. The site sends your message on to the relevant local authority which …

[The Fuzzy Wotnot]

Yeah right, "fix" them!

By the word "fix" you mean a council van rolls up, three blokes get out, two light-up the other makes tea. Then after 45 mins they mix up a batch of what looks like Marmite, supposed to be tar I presume, slap it roughly into the pot-hole, bang it flat with a spade, dump a traffic cone in the spot and bugger off to the next one!

Don't know about anyone else, but that's all that seems to happen around my way. Of cource that's when it does actually happen, most of the time the holes stay there for about 6 months before they turn up to "fix" them!

[Bassey]

Yorkshiremen Sketch

"By the word "fix" you mean a council van rolls up, three blokes get out, two light-up the other makes tea. Then after 45 mins they mix up a batch of what looks like Marmite"

Marmite? You get Marmite? Around here they have taken to filling the pot-holes with gravel. Then the gravel gets displaced from the whole resulting in a four-inch-high wall of gravel building up around the four-inch-deep pot-hole and thus making the thing twice as dangerous as it was. We have one on the appex of a very tight, blind, left corner on a very narrow road forcing you onto the wrong side of the road.

I could have sworn I saw a pack of cyclists at the bottom of one the other day. Made me smile.

[Anonymous Coward]

This app fails to recognise councils that carry out preventative maintenence.

Which is actually cheaper in the long run.

Not that mine do, they're bloody useless.

[Anonymous Coward]

title

"FillThatHole.org"

NSFW?

[Jason Hall]

correction

http://www.fillthathole.org.uk/

[Anonymous Coward]

re:correction

Direct quote from reg, they've since fixed the article. ;)

I was a bit worried about actually testing the url during working hours ;)

[Bob H]

Android please...

Give me one for Android and I'll be able to add all the ones that jump out on me each day.

[Greg J Preece]

And for me!

My road is so bad that the potholes are now four inches deep in places, and the cobbles that the road replaced are making a comeback. I could put in literally 50+ reports just on that one road. It needs resurfacing.

Oh, but they did send a guy round last week. He filled in about 6 of them, fairly roughly, then left. And the only ones he filled were in the exact spot on the road where there's a gas leak, and they're about to rip the road up to fix it. D'oh! Could you not see the strange yellow markings on the road right next to your white ones?

[Anonymous Coward]

And everyone else's phone

Meh.

[nigel 15]

SFW FillThatHole.org

if i go to FillThatHole.org am i going to get fired?

[NX1977]

android?

AAndroid forgotten as usual?

[Szymon Kosecki]

Android

have a look at fixmystreet on

http://www.androlib.com/android.developer.darkgreener-qFq.aspx

does similar job, also grabs gps coordinates and attaches them to the report

[Anonymous Coward]

Hole ? Crater more like

If I put cones around all the "holes" I have seen which are more than 3" deep, the fair city or Birmingham would gridlock.

[Martin 19]

To be fair to Brum;

Every single pothole I've reported to the council has been fixed fairly quickly; and the worst stretches (eg Belgrave Middleway) have been completely resurfaced instead of patched.

If you want to see real potholes go to south Staffs....

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't seen my road in brum

Bodgitt and scarper came round In September to fill the holes made in January ... the old "throw a sack of tarmac in and drive off" trick ... NASA called last week, said it would be ideal for training astronauts for walking on Mars.

[Roger Stenning]

Oh, another 'there's a problem' site, eh?

Pity it's not as well known as http://www.fixmystreet.com/, which covers a hole (oops, spelling, I meant "whole"!) raft of other problems, pretty much from a-z, that a council could possibly have a solution or remedy for. I've been using the site for ages, and it seems to get results.

Still, if they both work, what the heck :-)

[Just Thinking]

Targets

"Glasgow has been told about 1,167 potholes and has fixed 167 of them."

Do they have a target to never have more than 1000 potholes?

[Seanmon]

RE: Targets

If they do, they're missing it. Seen four cars lose tyres at the same spot down the road from me in the past week.

[Disco-Legend-Zeke]

Here In The Colonies...

...once a responsible entity has been notified, citizens can sue for broken tires, ball joints, etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could do with this around Hemel Hempstead

Hemel is currently so bad that the police can spot drunk drivers as they are the only ones NOT weaving all over the roads like crazy, trying to dodge all the potholes.

[CaffeinePwrdAl]

Hemel Hempstead -> Nasa should test Mars rovers here...

Amen to Hemel Hempstead's terrible record - There's a recurring pothole that has been around since 2005 when I moved to the area, under the railway bridge in Nash Mills - they resurfaced/relaid the road there just last year, and its back again already, instead of turning up in a van and pissing around, they should turn up with 2 vans and bury one in the god damned hole.

On a brighter note, someone could tell Sellafield I've found a solution to their long term nuclear waste storage problems...

[Irne Barnard]

Already available in most phones

Just look at a little app: http://world.waze.com/

A whole lot more comprehensive than just showing "holes". Though it doesn't go and show each municipality where what happens - it would be nice if someone could go and do such though. Any type of problem, from accidents, dead traffic lights and other hazards can easily be shown to all. And you can then be updated to see where these are, since all reports are shared to all members - thus you can "try" to avoid these problem areas.

Here in SA we've gotten so fed up with the non-existent service (or rather corrupt government officials using taxes to line their pockets without doing anything to the roads) that there's now a private organization (read: insurance company) to which you can report potholes: http://www.potholebrigade.co.za

Typical South Africa: we pay huge taxes, then we have to get a private company (taking more of our hard earned bog-rolls) to actually do what the taxes were meant for. They started about 2 months ago ... and already over 4000 potholes filled (or at least they state so on their site). I like their "politically correct" phrase: "... in conjunction with the Gauteng Provincial Department of Roads and ..." - Sarcasm like there's never been before!!!!

I think the insurance co has ulterior motives (besides the extra adverts), since there's constantly people breaking wheels, axles, etc. And the insurance cos then end up having to sue the roads agency - which of course takes years to even get heard in our overloaded court system. Which means a 6 month old pothole here is considered a very young hazard indeed!

"Marmite" ... ha ha ha ... we're lucky if the roads agency goes and throws some gravel into the sink-hole (when you need rock-climbing equipment to get out of the car after driving into one it's not called a pot-hole) after numerous cars have been written off in that specific spot. Look at some of the photos:

http://www.google.co.za/images?hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENZA259&biw=1744&bih=967&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=johannesburg+roads+potholes&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

[Steve 13]

'Fix'

In Sheffield 'fix' seems to be similar to what The Fuzzy Wotnot described in the first post.

Poor some tar in the hole, consider it fixed.

And then a bus runs over the 'fixed' hole and squeezes half the tarmac straight out, some water gets in, the weather turns cold and six weeks later the hole is worse than before. A complete waste of money and resources, they need to fix them properly, but that would take a bit more thought and effort!

[advocate]

App for Win Pho 7 Plox

As per title....

[Oliver 7]

Worst roads in Scotland...

...are in Edinburgh. The cold snap has made an already atrocious road infrastructure even worse, compounding decades of under-investment. I can almost understand the Chelsea tractor brigade's rationale!

What's worse is that the council seem to have bags of cash for stuff like narrowing roads by building out pavements, installing street furniture and painting in bus lanes. The worst thing though is the extraordinary amount of speed humps that they maintain city wide. If they didn't waste so much money on installing bumps in the road I reckon they'd have a bit more to fill in some of the holes.

Let's see an Android version!

[Robert Carnegie]

In Shetland

I wonder if those technically are "roads".

[Chris Miller]

Good to see that

there are still 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire.

[Chris 211]

I thought this was a new caving app!

potholing anyone?

[Chris 211]

why do we need apps?

When a webpage can do everything needed?

Less apps more compatible webpages please.

[Radelix]

Citysourced

In the U.S. we have this

http://www.citysourced.com/

Which is a touch more comprehensive than just potholes and faded road paint.

[Elmer Phud]

Barnet

Barnet has a score of 24% which comes as no surprise.

As the original 'EasyCouncil' they got rid of the efficient council workers for a succession of what are politley called 'private contractors'. I was thinking of seeing if could get odds at the local bookies on how long it takes for the holes to come back bigger and better than before.

[Sonny Jim]

Aggregate Industries

That would be the people who supply the concrete, no surprise that they would sponsor an App that would increase sales of their products.

Still, it's a shame that they are so blinkered in their choice of platforms, I was of the assumption that there were actually more Android phones that iPhones now.

[Blubster]

@AC 14:17

"I live in Wakefield, travel through Barnsley, to Doncaster each day. Wakefield is far and away the worst"

Out of those three presumably - just try a detour through Huddersfield and see what state the roads are here because those useless Kirklees Council twats can't get their act together.

You can always tell when you're back in West Yorkshire especially Huddersfield because the roads suddenly change from billiard table smoothness to pot-hole riddle ploughed fields. Potholed that is until a local election is imminent when 'workers' are sent out to fill in the biggest holes with second-hand cold rolled asphalt that lasts until just after the election results have been announced.

[Kevin 6]

Wow

You guys have it lucky with so few potholes.

My block (in the US, its roughtly 1/8th of a mile) has roughly 20-30 potholes on it for over 2 years and the city has yet to care... Hell part of the street is collapsing, and they do nothing no matter how much its reported

That is not counting any of the other streets nearby which are about just as bad. 2 streets over there has been a water main broken for over 2 months with no repairs...

[LaeMing]

Timely

Yesterday morning I fractured my right wrist falling over a raised paver. Luckily it was on my way to work, so my workplace insurance covers it (though there are no medical costs or lost work-time anyway - not much you can do with a wrist except ice-pack it). My workplace will make sure the council resets the section of pave I reported though (being the second largest business in the city is good like that).

(Luckily I use a left-handed BAT keyboard, or I would be typing this much more slowly. I can do the mouse with minimal movement of the hand/fingers).

[Martin 15]

One way loggin

As little as I like my local council, I have to say that these statistics are a bit iffy.

There seems to be plenty very quick to log potholes, but very few logging repairs.

A local road was really very bad and hit the press but has been reasonably repaired, but still appears on that web site as bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Very Impressive, im happy, my council isnt :))))

That Norwich has come 6th in the list, I wonder where Norfolk came on the list?

Bearing in mind that they cost me several hundred pounds in repairs to my car recently thanks to their potholes...

So i just reported every single pot hole i could...

(its a pity that few other motorists do so really!)

15+ Potholes reported (they really hate me for that lot :) bet it cost them more than the what i've had to payout on my car, for tracking and alignment and repairs to buckled alloys.

(i did it just to rub their noses in it and make them pay, as they refused to payout for the costs to repair my car)

nice result

oh and i used www.fixmystreet.co.uk to log them on.

( i also outright refuse to drive in aylesbury vale / Bucks as their roads are atrocious and cost me £2k+ back in 2005/6 in repairs due to lethal (to bikes/cars/trucks) potholes on their B-roads)

[Nick Ryan]

Bucks...

Bucks roads have been appalling for years. A long time ago, in order to "save (short term) costs" they basically gave up on preventative maintenance. Anything to keep the poll tax down...

The result is that you know damn quick as soon as you get into roads that are, ahem, "maintained" by Bucks CC as the road changes in quality instantly. I've seen cyclists and motorcyclists have accidents directly as a result of these holes and the number of cars that require suspension / balancing / tyre work has gone up markedly as well - your local grease monkey installation will confirm this for you.

Some districts in Bucks are worse than others, but in general they're appalling with holes left for months before being dealt with.

[Anonymous Coward]

Be warned, it's not a dogging site

I went to 'fillthathole.org.uk', found the nearest hole that needed filling, put my name and description in and then went and waited at the indicated location for hours, no-one who had a hole that needed filling turned up, indeed when the council gang turned up to repair the badly maintained road and I asked them if they wanted a hole filled they got positively aggressive. I really think it should be made clearer...

[kain preacher]

Roads ?

You folks have roads ? Were I live the speed limit is 40 MPH but you are lucky if you can do 30MPH. The road would be better ifthe just dug it up and made it into a dirt road.