I live in Hungary and the roads here are incredibly bad with millions of potholes. Hot summers and cold winters doesn’t help either.

But what I noticed that if the asphalt has higer mixture of stones (usually they use basalt here) then there are virtually almost no potholes. It’s more loud as the surface is more rough but by my layman experience it’s much more durable. Pure asphalt roads with very little stone content always become pothole minefields quickly.

So I just generally don’t know why higher stone content is not a standard. Probably more expensive and maybe because of the sound too. I don’t think it’s more slippery in wet conditions.

> The material could be scaled up for use on British roads in a couple of years, the researchers believe.

As per usual these optimistic solutions are inhibited by cost. All municipalities that I’ve lived in have ignored potholes until the complainants become a choir. It is always cheaper this way.

Claims extension of surface lifespan by 30%. Cool if true, though far from an end to potholes.

"To make the self-healing bitumen, the researchers mixed in tiny porous plant spores soaked in recycled oils. When the road surface is compressed by passing traffic, it squeezes the spores, which release their oil into any nearby cracks. The oils soften the bitumen enough for it to flow and seal the cracks."

Are we really buying this?

That’s good news, but why are the roads in the UK so bad to start with? Is it correct to say that roads are funded from a tax on fuel sales?

The easiert way to extend road surface life is to go zero tolerance and place extreme penalties on weight limit exceeding trucks.

This will ofc not eliminate resurfacing need, but the impact of excessive load is a very substantial part of road wear.

In Italy (Perugia) not only huge and dangerous potholes (is a disaster overall) but sidewalks maintenance is pretty much abandoned as well. I drive a motorcycle and instead of paying attention to driving I have to put considerable effort looking at the road because I know that if a drive over one of those I'll end up in the ground for sure.

Would be interesting to see if any municipalities have experimented with self-healing surfaces at small scale to gauge cost-effectiveness. If it reduces long-term maintenance, councils might actually save money instead of just patching potholes endlessly.

Potholes are political problem, not technical.