The study of British and Irish roads - their construction, numbering, history, mapping, past and future official roads proposals and general roads musings.
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Debaser wrote:Larger reflective surface area and (no doubt arguably) much better performance than the old Percy Shaw originals...it is progress.
My arse. The damn things dont stick, or if they do, after the first cold spell they come off. The depressable studs with the 3M inserts are a much better compromise.
I dont even rate the glass studs, again from a maintenance point of view. They dont retain their reflectiveness, get very mucky in winter and have a tendancy to sink in bituminous surfaces.
The Halifax stud will always be better, until such a time hardwired LED studs become available for use in the UK (12 months after the Hindhead Tunnel opens).
I prefer stick-on's. Sorry.
I don't see the point in laying a large area of road surfacing with lovely joints and then drilling holes in it at 9 or 18m centres.
I've had an argument for Halifax's based on setting up contraflows, but the road cylinders need to be at 9m centres, and the studs are usually at 18m.
vlad wrote:If they're doing what Staffs CC did a couple of years ago, they're removing the cats eyes ready to resurface the road and then replace them with modern stud-type things that look as if they'd break if you drove over them.
Owain wrote:As a kid I used to be amused at how councils could get their cat's eyes out of synch with road markings. I can still remember that 20-odd years ago there was a half-mile stretch of the B4228 between Chepstow and Coleford (Glos) where the eyes were mostly inserted into the lines, and not between them.
If the markings and studs don't line up it is because the markings have been applied after the studs, either after SDing or renewing worn markings.
Newly surfaced roads will have the markings applied first then the studs inserted in the correct place in the markings.
Conekicker wrote:Apart from double white lines, there's no legal reason to place studs, so it's no real surprise that many councils don't use them much.
Indeed, apart from the trunk roads I don't expect studs, so seeing them on council roads is a bonus rather than the norm.
boing_uk wrote:The Halifax stud will always be better, until such a time hardwired LED studs become available for use in the UK (12 months after the Hindhead Tunnel opens).
I think the new style ones with the large reflective surface (obviously in a metal shoe so they stay there) look at lot brighter when they are new, but they don't seem to retain their reflectiveness for as longs as the Halifax style.
novaecosse wrote:I prefer stick-on's. Sorry.
I don't see the point in laying a large area of road surfacing with lovely joints and then drilling holes in it at 9 or 18m centres.
I see your point about drilling holes in the surface (and you can often see older surfaces breaking away around the drilled studs), but I think stick-on studs for anything other than outwith the edge lines are just a waste of time, they don't last after being driven over repeatedly.
novaecosse wrote:I've had an argument for Halifax's based on setting up contraflows, but the road cylinders need to be at 9m centres, and the studs are usually at 18m.
Thats a lame one for sure. I'd use them too if they would stay stuck down, but if they get run over with any regularity, then they just dont. Ive wasted too much money on them in the past; rather pay for a halifax and put a good rubber in there instead, like the 3M 590.
I'm a bit on the fence on this one, whilst I accept that inserted studs have a better mechanical fixing with the road surface, "if" you have a good maintenance inspection process, the stick on types offer advantages in being less damaging to the surface, thus reducing long term surfacing maintenance, are cheaper but conversely, may cost you more more over the whole life in replacements and TM to re-install missing studs.
Haydn1971 wrote:"if" you have a good maintenance inspection process,
Isn't that the point tho? Many don't and from a drivers point of view it's better to have something longer lasting as you can't rely on councils etc to replace them in a timely manner.
Not quite Mark, the stick on studs perform better and cause less damage to the surface, the older style cast iron studs, pierce the surface creating a future maintenance liability, are more costly to install and have moving parts that still require regular replacement, but are built like tanks and don't generally detach from the surface.
A large section of the A3054 between Newport and Yarmouth has already been resurfaced and not had cats eyes installed. There are signed warning motorists the cats eyes have been removed. What's up with that? Isle of Wight roads are scary enough as they are.
Rather than only one or the other if I am given the opportunity to choose or make a suggestion I will specify the inset 3M590 for lane lines and 1010 at slip roads as these will get the most traffic over time and last longer than stick downs and for the edge of carriageway lines the stick down 3M290 as they should get less traffic over them especially if behind the line.
orudge wrote:So, I noticed today that Aberdeenshire Council seem to have removed a load of cat's eyes from a couple of roads near here, and have just replaced them with a rather ugly little patch of tarmac, covered in chippings. I don't think the cat's eyes were necessarily all that old, and they haven't replaced them with new ones, so why would they remove them? It seems to be a step backwards to me. (Plus, the new tiny little patches seem really quite awful, which is quite frustrating as they recently did a lovely job digging out some awful potholes here and replacing them with lovely smooth new tarmac!)
I could be wrong but I think the council have removed the ones on the A948 too, when they did the throw tar down and chuck chippings on thing. Either that or they are just old and broken. Will check next time I'm on it.
There was a death a couple of years ago where a loose catseye had been driven over by a van, hurled behind, and hit someone in the face.
Are councils starting to remove them because of this?
Remember a trial on the M8 a few years ago with flashing LED catseyes on the hard shoulder.
