A couple of days ago I was driving to Inverell on the Gwydir Highway; it had been raining steadily for most of the day and was raining at the time of the following incident.

A car coming towards me, some 300 metres away, suddenly sent up a great spray of water from its left front wheel, spun violently through 360 degrees and came to rest facing me and on the wrong side of the road. I’d hit the anchors pretty fast and drove up to it and stopped with my hazard lights flashing.

There was a young woman gripping the steering wheel and in some shock, she didn’t know what had happened and said that the wheel was suddenly wrenched out of her hands
I got her to pull off the road, pulled off also and gave her a coffee from the thermos that I usually carry; then I explained to her what had happened.

Her left front wheel had hit a depression in the road that was full of water and the sudden resistance had pulled the steering wheel out of her grip; she learned something that most older drivers on country roads know about rain and water on the road.

On many roads there are shallow depressions along the tar on both sides of the road, these are caused by a combination of heavy trucks and skimpy foundation, the problem has been known for decades but no Government does anything about it as that would cost a lot of money for no votes and once the sun comes out the problem goes away.

Had the young lady rolled her car and been killed she would undoubtedly have been seen as another “speed kills” statistic.

I’m also glad that I wasn’t closer or I may have been a statistic too.

Is Mise,

That problem exists not only on country roads but on
suburban streets as well. We constantly encounter
unfixed depressions. Fortunately they haven't been
filled with water and driving at slower speeds all
we feel is the big bump and it does not affect the
steering. It may affect the wheel alignment.

Councils don't maintain the roads as they should.

cont'd ...

It appears that the damage in suburban streets
is caused by delivery trucks and garbage trucks.
We recently reported one major large pot hole
near a high school on a suburban street.
Fortunately the council did fix it. Probably nobody
reports all the other damages - so nobody fixes it.
And it doesn't appear that the councils don't do
regular inspections and maintenance.

Foxy, I guess it depends on your council? For weeks now, my Council has been resurfacing roads all through town. It's a western NSW rural area on the Murray, with a very low population, few towns but a LOT of roads, mostly dirt. Road management has improved greatly in the last 20 years. The main change is closing the dirt roads quickly when it rains, so they don't get badly cut up and require a fortune (and months/years) to fix. The Council can then focus on maintaining the sealed roads, and gradually sealing the most heavily used dirt roads.

Dear Cossomby,

Welcome back - missed your posts!

Your council sounds great. I live in metropolitan
Melbounre. On the whole our council does a good
job. And they did react when we reported the pot hole.
Perhaps because it was near a high school and very
busy activity. On the whole though, maintenance of
our suburban roads is slack.

I think the German Autobahn uses much thicker foundations than Australian roads the capex reducing maintenance requirements. Germany is also four times larger in population and many times smaller in area.

Australia has unique problems but we are historically a very inventive people.

At 100 km/h cars handle differently to 60 km/h.

I've long thought that the main reason for accidents is a lack of concentration- not so much speed- you can't multitask while driving