Observations
Travelling down the A1 on Thursday we noticed tyres littering the sides of the road. There must have been at least one for every mile covered. These are larger than car tyres but could include motorhomes or big 4WD pickups etc. why so many and why aren’t they removed by the repair vehicles which must attend such incidents?
On an another observation we saw far more motorhomes on the move compared with caravans. Same situation on the sites we are staying on, probably around 10 to 1!
Comments
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Don't some lorries use re-treaded tyres? I have always imagine what you see on the motorway is the re-treading part of the tyre so they probably don't stop for some way after the incident? The bits never look like complete tyres?
I think there is a tendency to see more motorhomes on the move in the winter as they are often only away for a night or two? AT least that is the impression I get from reading Facebook Groups.
David
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Could be so, just so many of them and so much general discarded rubbish all over the place too. What a disgraceful state of affairs and ‘rubbish’ strewn country we live in. Even saw a settee and a fridge freezer in one lay-by.
Yes we tend to stay only a couple or three nights at one site and move on.. Don’t caravaners do the same when going away for just a weekend? Just saw so many more motorhomes on the sites too.
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Living very close to the A1 we are aware of the very many accidents on the road. The part through Lincs is one of the most dangerous roads in the country. The accidents cost the economy millions. Many involve hgv vehicles so not surprised at the amount of tyres, especially parts of tyres. Every so often they close the A1 completely or in part, overnight to do roadside litter collection. It is not something that can be done without the road closures, just too dangerous.
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I think DK and Hja, are thinking in the right direction. Who in their right mind is going to step out onto a busy motorway and remove their debris, that’s if they are even aware something has happened🤷♀️
https://www.transportengineer.org.uk/transport-engineer-features/tyres-reading-the-debris/174373The other factor is one common to most issues in this country (I can’t be sure about others)……there simply aren’t enough human beings employed to actually carry out the work required, be it keeping motorways safe, patrolling streets, answering telephones, caring for the sick, elderly and disabled, carrying out routine safety checks, etc…, etc…..
We live in a financially divisive and challenged country sadly.
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Interesting article there, TDA. Yes, seen tyres littering in the past but this time there seemed so many more. When on the continent I’ve seen crews in the middle of the night doing strategic clean up operations of ‘motorways’ and major roads. Is this not happening here?
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OH used to spend a fair bit of time up and down local motorways, going to RTA’s in the night time hours and can recall seeing such obstructions being removed, but that is quite a long time ago now. We rarely see a Police motorway patrol car anywhere on the M1, A1, M18, M180, M62 that are all within 10 miles of us, and have commented on it for at least the last fifteen years. You are lucky if you see a Highway Agency patrol vehicle as well. So stuff clearly isn’t getting reported and collected, unless it’s a major hazard actually in the carriageway, most simply stays in the gutters, or might get dumped into nearest layby. I cannot think of a single public service agency that isn’t struggling to perform as it should be because of lack of funding, lack of staffing, lack of investment. ☹️
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Not only tyres littering the road..... In certain places there is so much general rubbish... cans, plastic bottles, paper.... etc.... usually at the side of motorways or major trunk roads. I just wonder how much has got to do with some of the stormy weather/ winds we have had recently...blowing the stuff around?
David
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I also think that Autumn sees the trees, bushes denuded and the ground cover dying back revealing folks deliberately discarded detritus! What a messy and antisocial lot some of us are. It’s terrible and it’s left there year on year it seems. A danger to us and nature in general. Makes my blood boil, so sad!
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Just over 2 years ago, whilst on the M5, a tyre blew out on my motorhome, just before J6. I got out of the van, climbed over the barrier and was on the phone to Green Flag when the police turned up, then the Highways Agency man turned up as well, both of them within just a few minutes of me stopping. The policeman drove the van the short distance off the motorway to a part-time, car park next to the motorway and the Green Flag man changed the wheel. I was very impressed with the services of all 3, but perhaps it was due to more services being available on a live, so called "Smart" motorway and J5, not being too far away.
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We were towing our caravan south on the M5 on our way to Devon a while back along with our son and his partner who were a few miles ahead of us in his car and we received a call from him informing us that there was a sofa in the middle lane and he had contacted the police, by the time we reached it there was foam rubber all over the place
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We recently travelled up the M1/A1 on one stretch of road we saw the overhead signs warning of debris on the road. Shortly after that we saw 4 cars on the hard shoulder all appeared to have damage, a couple of hundred meters on there was another 2 cars on the hard shoulder and about 500m after that another car. All appeared to have some kind of damage from hitting something. We couldn't see anything on the road but the amount of cars involved was troubling.
Litter is the first thing we notice when we get off the ferry from abroad. Be it Dover, Portsmouth or Hull it hits you how dirty our country is. The second thing we notice is the traffic queues 😩
We did notice that a number of bumpers strewn along the roadside and in nearby fields. We said surely the breakdown and recovery should collect that but obviously not.
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I dont think all this "littering" is caused by humonoids, we have a major problem with urban foxes who regularly get into bins that are overflowing and spread the contents far and wide looking for the smallest morsal. We also have some very big sea gulls that carry out a similar exercise wherever there is a bin without a lid or so full the lid will not close.
On our highways i think the local authority are to blame for much of the littering, how many lay byes have you driven past where the bins are overflowing, and why, because in the first place bins provided are totally inadequate for the amount of litter to be expected in a 24hrs period and bins are also probably not emptied regularly enough.
In Spain e.g. they tend to utilise much larger skips with very heavy lids that foxes and the like are unable to get into, also in most urbanizations residents do not have their own bins, they have to use communal skips which are normally conveniently situated and are emptied every night.
They have a similar system in Cyprus except bins are emptied maybe once per week, as a result they are nearly always overflowing with bags of garbbage left by the side of the bins and they are overun by feral cats.
I know the UK is not great for being a clean and pleasant land, but i could take you to areas in Spain where fly tipping is prevalant and some of it very close to so called blue flag beaches.
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Ttda asked " Who in their right mind is going to step out onto a busy motorway"
Definitely off topic but it reminds of my younger days back in 1971. The construction of the M62 was about to start and we were involved in seting out for the bridge that carries the M62 over the M6. This was before the days of electronic distance measuring and we literally had to measure across the M6 with a steel tape. So, on the Sunday morning at 8.00am we met a policeman on the hard shoulder of the motorway and explained what we had to do. He said "OK, wait here and I'll stop the traffic". Wearing his all black uniform ( well before the days of Hi Viz), he walked onto the quiet motorway and simply stuck his hand up!!! Luckily the first car saw him.
Absolutely true story.
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A danger indeed: one December we were driving up to Melrose. I can't remember which road it was, but we stopped for lunch in a lay-by, it was somewhere en route to Melrose, in Scotland.
We noticed a cat in the area adjacent to where we were parked, which was full of trees and bushes, and, as you say mickysf, also full of rubbish. We then noticed the cat walking a bit oddly (it was some distance away, so we couldn't see clearly). OH decided to have a look and tried to get close to it. He then saw that it had its head stuck in a tin can, hence our impression that it was walking oddly. We had a bit of a problem trying to get hold of it, but managed it in the end and then managed to free its head from the can. It shot off like a bullet (in the opposite direction to where the road was, across some fields) poor thing. We hope it was ok, but goodness knows how long it had been stuck with its head in that can. It really made us angry too, mickysf, why do some people just throw rubbish outside?
On another note: the rubber bands discarded by some post(wo)men on the pavements annoy me too, I pick up any that I see, as I'm concerned hedgehogs can be harmed by those.
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Seagulls and foxes don’t produce and then dump/discard the huge amount of litter we now see around us, ‘we’ do. We can’t blame them for the problems we witness or the ease they have to access our discarded foodstuffs. When we do we can often cause problems and life threatening issues for our wildlife. I’m appalled by the dumping of household items and general rubbish in lay-bys and other places.
No matter where it happens at home or abroad, it shouldn’t, but we should be responsible for our own environment, it’s ours!0 -
There is no doubt that littering is a national disgrace but what is also a disgrace is the number of people who walk past it without picking it up. If every person out on a walk would pick up 6 pieces a day, it would help enormously.
Similarly many people see the results of flytipping and never report it.
Our council is very good at removing fly tipped items but they can't be expected to do so without a bit of help.
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I recall in my childhood my granny sweeping and cleaning the path and street edge in front of her house and also that of her elderly neighbour. Everyone did the same and shops too. People would also pick up wind blown rubbish.
Don’t start me with chewing gum, cigarette butts, discarded vapes, nitrous oxide cylinders and even worse, it’s everywhere these days! Dreadful state of affairs in filthy Britain!0 -
Unfortunately there will always be people who think their responsibility for keeping things tidy ends at their garden gate! Having said that there are a lot of citizen led litter picking groups and even some individuals that try and keep things tidy. I live on a corner so the boundary of my property is quite long compared to the normal house frontage. I always sweep the gutters to keep them free of leaves (as does my next door neighbour) and I collect leaves that collect under the hedges. OK I am retired and I suppose have plenty of time but there are houses, all privately owned, where the owners make no effort and most of them are a lot younger and probably fitter than me! On the whole I don't think MK is too bad in the litter stakes fortunately.
David
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This is a deep seated problem. Many years ago, 1980s/1990s, when I was teaching, secondary school class. We had been doing an activity that had produced quite a lot of bits of paper, some of which had inevitably ended up on the floor. I asked all the kids to pick up a couple of bits of paper each and put in the bin. This was not a bad class. Reaction? It's not my paper! Why should I? We have cleaners! Obviously I explained to them that it wasnt the cleaner's job to clear up their mess, but they wernt happy. They did clear it all up! This attitude comes from parents and it about a selfish, me first attitude.
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