Heavy vehicles are to blame.

EVs are too expensive for many and lots of people live in houses and flats without the possibility of cheap charging. Councils often won't allow across pavement charging and won't fit kerbside chargers. If Millibabd wants more EVs on the road he needs to address these problems.

Jaxjacky

We don’t build our roads as robustly as some other countries including decent drainage, neither do we maintain them. We are reactive, patching potholes after the event, often badly.

That’s the trouble, too much patching which doesn’t last long.

Except for holiday weekends Ive found driving in France much easier, quieter, better roads, although main A roads tend to be heavy traffic. In Belgium and Germany traffic is as bad as the UK, during the week,

David49

Except for holiday weekends Ive found driving in France much easier, quieter, better roads, although main A roads tend to be heavy traffic. In Belgium and Germany traffic is as bad as the UK, during the week,

The traffic is as bad. The state of the roads is better in both Germany (seen this month) and France ( seen last summer).

Overall there is less traffic in France, but there is also a lot of work done to keep them in good order locally, regionally and nationwide.. I was on the Council in a small commune and we were responsible for ensuring the maintenance of our (very) rural roads.

Overall there is less traffic in France?
Per capita?
Or
Because it’s a bigger country
or because fewer people own cars?

Mollygo

^Overall there is less traffic in France?^
Per capita?
Or
Because it’s a bigger country
or because fewer people own cars?

I'd have said that French roads were less intensively used because probably about the same number of cars as in the UK are spread over a far wider area, and so there is less damage to them but that's just as a visitor to a mainly rural area. Mamie obviously has more detailed knowledge of how the system works. and how intensively the roads are used.

Of course, before Thatcher got her hands on our economy and heavily promoted the idea that state spending was undesirable and local authorities were spendthrifts, there was better funding for local roads (responsibility of LAs) and for major roads (responsibility of central government). Successive governments have followed her lead, particularly the 'austerity' policies of the Cameron government and don't seem to have understood that cutting spending on infrastructure leads to its inevitable deterioration. We are now just reaping the rewards of being fed the continual line that government spending, whether local or national, is inefficient and very wasteful.

Not just in our roads, of course, but that's a whole topic in itself...

Mamie obviously has more detailed knowledge of how the system works. and how intensively the roads are used.

Exactly why I put the question in response to Mamie’s post.

I am well enough versed in the size of France, both rural and urban, to guess at usage.
It’s strange that, particularly where I live, the roads have deteriorated rapidly in the last two years.