11–20 of 137 posts
It's easy to opine for the "internet of old", but I for one do not miss having to post a car problem to a Ford Escort message board and maybe getting an answer after 3 days of being told I am an idiot.
I haven't seen these in a decade but I knew what they were talking about instantly. I used to wonder what they were all the time. I sure didn't expect to get an answer randomly on the HN front page. They did a really good job installing these. They look like they would be bumpy but I never felt them at all.
Similarly, I'm always impressed by how smooth the ashpalt highways in Toronto are, even though they are spiderwebbed with cracks absolutely everywhere. That's because the cracks are filled each spring with some sort of sealant. They make a regular slapping sound as the tires pass over them, but cannot be felt.
The current repair practice is to pour tar on the asphalt road and then a coating of road gravel. It’s noisey, comes off when heavy vehicles use it, comes off with heavy usage or heavy breaking, comes off in hot sun and it’s utter trash. It’s cheap though!
Man, reading this format does not make me miss forums. It's easy to opine for the "internet of old", but I for one do not miss having to post a car problem to a Ford Escort message board and maybe getting an answer after 3 days of being told I am an idiot.
IIRC this is one of the disadvantages of concrete (as opposed to asphalt) road surfaces: it's very hard to repair them in ways that don't degrade over time.
edit: You can tell this road is "real" concrete because of the visible seams between each slab. For an ideal repair, they would have had to replace every affected slab of concrete, which is...all of them along this stretch.
You don't see these concrete road surfaces much near where I live (in Boston), particularly because such roads are much less safe when snow and ice are present.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's one bit of jointed concrete road that I know of in the UK, a few miles where I live on the A90 near Laurencekirk. It's bloody awful, like driving over smashed paving slabs. In my big old Range Rover with its off-road air suspension and massive reinforced tyres it's a noisy and uncomfortable couple of miles. In a modern vehicle with ultra-low profile tyres and incredibly stiff "sporty" suspension it must be li…
The US interstate moves insane numbers of huge ass-trucks that weight one billion metric pounds each or something. Anything less than airport-grade concrete dies instantly, and then dies again when it invariably freezes to -40° Kelvin, because fuck physics when shit gets cold.
A little funny to not link to the comment that had the answer — they're dowel bar retrofits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowel_bar_retrofit
If a Wikipedia page about a technological topic (so not a person, place etc) has a very few languages available (in this case 2) then it always makes me wonder how other countries in the World solve the same issue. This seems like a very US thing for example but maybe I’m wrong
But this is the advantage of a small country with many people. Good infrastructure.
I don't understand how everyone knows what the commenter is referring to when it took me forever. I figured he was referring to the "dents" on the shoulder, which I thought were rumble strips.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similarly, I'm always impressed by how smooth the ashpalt highways in Toronto are, even though they are spiderwebbed with cracks absolutely everywhere. That's because the cracks are filled each spring with some sort of sealant. They make a regular slapping sound as the tires pass over them, but cannot be felt.
I don’t think you could do the repair with asphalt. I’m not even sure I’ve ever driven on a concrete road, as down here in New Zealand there aren’t any I don’t think. The current repair practice is to pour tar on the asphalt road and then a coating of road gravel. It’s noisey, comes off when heavy vehicles use it, comes off with heavy usage or heavy breaking, comes off in hot sun and it’s utter trash. It’s cheap thou…