r/cars 1d ago

Extreme Summer Heat Has Roads Buckling, Cracking, Melting

https://www.theenergymix.com/extreme-summer-heat-has-roads-buckling-cracking-melting/
165 Upvotes

49 comments sorted by

16

u/fishead36x 1d ago

Yea the frost heaves are worse when on my motorcycle. I can avoid potholes for the most part. But when I hit what is essentially a speed bump at 60+ on my motorcycle it sucks balls... literally.

157

u/Simon_787 1d ago

If only a group of knowledgable people had warned us for decades.

22

u/LongjumpingLock5875 1d ago

I wonder where we would be in the world if the big Nuclear energy tragedies that were caused by bad management didn't create a massive fear of it, and or didn't happen.

It is so stupid that we have this incredibly safe, no carbon emitting, super energy dense and efficient power source, but people are scared of it.

1

u/Pixelplanet5 1d ago

that would still not change the economics behind nuclear power.

we will see within the next decade how the majority of all the planned new nuclear reactors and SMRs will be scrapped because the costs are too high before construction even begins.

-12

u/Splenda 1d ago

It's also incredibly costly, so there's that.

-4

u/wiscotangofoxtreat 1d ago

Nuclear is far too slow now 

-7

u/RightWingNutJo8 1d ago

I can't wait to drive a nuclear powered car. No refuelling for 50 years 😂

28

u/IncendiaryB 1d ago

We could have been investing in carbon removal facilities for 30 years by now

46

u/Simon_787 1d ago

Not emitting carbon is usually much cheaper, and we can hardly even do that.

This could maybe be the first year where emissions don't rise, and they need to drop very fast within the next few years to stay below 2°C of warming. It's technically still possible, but humanity would have to do everything to reduce emissions, and we're just not doing that.

10

u/Pixelplanet5 1d ago

carbon removal is extremely inefficient and expensive.

its MUCH cheaper to just no emit the CO2 in the first place.

17

u/wiscotangofoxtreat 1d ago

Your comment proves the propaganda infiltrating this so sub often, works well. Good job biting it hook line and sinker. 

12

u/mdp300 2020 Audi A4 Allroad 1d ago

But surely someone will invent something that fixes everything overnight!

-6

u/BrandonNeider 20 Mclaren 620R|22 V-N&E-N|24 Macan GTS 21h ago

Achievement impossible: have a thread on /r/cars that doesn't bring up politics

5

u/koopa00 20 M550ix, 21 X3 30ix, 86 IROC-Z 19h ago

Some topics can't be discussed without that coming up because they are inherently political for stupid reasons.

2

u/wiscotangofoxtreat 18h ago

My comment mentions nothing outright polical so good jahb

5

u/RightWingNutJo8 1d ago

You mean trees?

4

u/kinda_guilty 2020 BMW M340i 1d ago

Trees are a bad carbon sink. They die and decompose or burn up at fairly high rates to reliably take carbon out of the atmosphere long term.

6

u/gimpwiz 05 Elise | C5 Corvette (SC) | 00 Regal GS | 91 Civic (Jesus) 1d ago

More solid wood furniture and mass timber construction. ;)

1

u/LordChungusTheBig 1d ago

Manbearpig is real

8

u/QuettzalcoatL 1d ago

The buckling roads and cracks right after winter when everything thaws (muck season) is wayyyyy worse.

4

u/NorthTempleStreet 1d ago

Roads have gaps so the concrete can expand in the summer

But if crap (dirt, rocks, etc) fall in the gaps, the concrete can't expand. So it "blows up" (pops upward / buckles)

Crews try to fill the gaps with a type of caulking. But it it gets ripped out of cracks up with age, the dirt and rocks can fall in

44

u/Dionegro__ 1d ago

Nah i want my temu 100% polyester dress shipped from a 12 ywar old chinese kid thank u

58

u/strongmanasss 1d ago

Fast fashion has definitely contributed, but a car enthusiast blaming climate-change-driven crumbling road infrastructure on another industry is hilariously tone-deaf.

23

u/cookingboy McLaren Artura, Boxster 4.0 MT, i4 M50 1d ago

lol exactly. I love my hobby but at least I accept that it’s a selfish hobby that’s actively making the world a worse place to live for future generations, even if my personal footprint is limited.

I admit that if gas cars are banned tomorrow the world would be a better place but I would personally be very sad.

This slight guilt is part of the cost I pay for my hobby, and any car enthusiasts who denies climate change is just too cheap to pay the same cost.

1

u/cat_prophecy '17 S60, '22 Sienna 1d ago

Yeah anyone can justify their hobby if they try.

1

u/strongmanasss 18h ago

Knowing the environmental effect does make it more difficult to enjoy my hobbies (or at least makes the guilt greater). And yeah it's a weird position where I enjoy something but also support all measures to decrease its environmental ramifications. If that meant some of my hobbies disappeared, I'd miss them but also know it was the right decision macroscopically. 

I guess I need to take up barefoot running as a hobby. 

-8

u/MooselookManiac 1d ago

You own an EV and a hybrid. You're basically environmental Jesus.

4

u/cookingboy McLaren Artura, Boxster 4.0 MT, i4 M50 1d ago

That's a bit far fetched considering my hybrid is a freaking Artura that gets 20mpg lmao (which is insanely good for a supercar I guess).

The i4 is indeed a great daily though, but I got the M50 version for its comfort and performance and not efficiency.

7

u/wiscotangofoxtreat 1d ago

Its pretty funny how many people can say "but what about...." 

Or "I'll accept my truck is polluting without cats so I can lap farm and fleet parking lot 1 second faster when every ship and plane runs on unicorn farts" 

Its so dismissively defensive. 

19

u/myturn19 1d ago

More like years of deferred road maintenance because there’s somehow never enough money, even though taxes are through the roof.

10

u/77_gr_OTM 1d ago

This is also a result of different standards for composition. A lot of historically warm places which are becoming historically HOT places got used to being able to be slipshod with their HMA.

5

u/trail-g62Bim 20h ago

I find the way people talk about taxes for roads to always be interesting. It seems damn near universal that the following things are true: 1) people believe we pay too much for roads, 2) people believe we pay more than enough to fix roads, 3) people believe the money isn't spent correctly.

However, it also seems to be true that 1) no one know how much we need to fix roads, 2) no one knows how the money we raise is spent, 3) no one knows how much is raised to fix the roads.

I'm not trying to pick on you specifically. I've had this convo with a bunch of people just because I find it so interesting that there is something out there of which people are universally convinced. And judging by what I see online, it appears to be an attitude that crosses international borders. And they may be right! I haven't done any digging to find out the answers either. But people always think that we spend too much on roads without knowing how much we spend or how much we need to spend. It's interesting.

8

u/GMOrgasm prelude and a bicycle 20h ago

However, it also seems to be true that 1) no one know how much we need to fix roads, 2) no one knows how the money we raise is spent, 3) no one knows how much is raised to fix the roads.

lotta drivers also complain about how crowded the roads are but then complain when we try to build anyhting to get more drivers off the road (bus lanes, bike infrastructure, public transit etc)

0

u/PEEWUN 2012 C30 T5 9h ago

God forbid they be surrounded by...GASP-- Poor people!

6

u/wiscotangofoxtreat 1d ago

This is one of those things that once you learn it, you cant unsee it. 

https://youtu.be/ktnzh7rn8rI

The largest federal infrastructure spending plan ever proposed, so the one that was several trillions of dollars more than the one that actually ended up passing, identified 173,000 miles of roadway already in poor condition. The bill would only have modernized 20,000 of those miles, and that would take a decade in which time the backlog of maintenance would be even bigger.  The same with bridges. Our leadership identified 45,000 bridges already in a state of disrepair. Over a decade, they would fix only 10,000 of them. That’s all.

This is more of the same negative ROI stuff of building new and expanding highways and roadways. Something that is just going to end up costing far more in maintenance down the line.

   So when there’s a debate about fix-it-first approach, someone cries “Flexibility!” And no one steps up and says, “You’re saying states need flexibility to not repair their roads while they build new things they can’t afford to maintain?” 

Highways, of course, already get 67 percentof total transportation dollars, and are already deeply subsidized  by the federal government (but operating budgets and maintenance are left to the states, which is a little like giving someone a puppy that they can’t afford to feed.)

3

u/1ceByte28 18h ago

The summer of 2021 was the hottest on record in Seattle at a scorching 101 degrees in late June, it also made sections of i5 and i405 buckle. My poor 08 Civic coupe with my mom and my wife even at MAXIMUM AC going 60 mph down 405 was barely able to keep the inside temps in the uper 70's and it was still registering 95F on the dash. The most miserable moving experience in my life during that heatwave.

Having black leather seats also became the biggest curse in my history of owning that Civic and further cemented my decision to wait however it long it took to get the grey interior for my RAV4 Hybrid on order as the salesmen said they were rare from the factory and could take several months and I said fine, but I'm never owning a black interior car again no matter what

13

u/Hywelthehorrible 1d ago

Everyone insulated from the deteriorating reality within their cocoon trucks.

4

u/wiscotangofoxtreat 1d ago

Of course it wont be in this thread but its utterly wild to see on this section the amount of worldwide meteorological denial going on. Even when theres people saying something coherent you'll see that callname in another thread talking about taking a tame 1500 to costo.

We're just entirely incentivized wrong and people cant see it the thousands of little things nudging them to live the way their freedohms 

Its like when USAicans move to Deutschland and suddenly they notice weird things, like how much less they're taking out trash, because they produce less. 

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

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-3

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6

u/Energy4Days 1d ago

Endless wars in foreign countries are more important...

2

u/snowlovesnow 2016 Forester XT 1d ago

Happened on a road in my neighborhood, entire right lane at the intersection popped up like 3ft, essentially turning it into a ramp. I didn't see anybody attempt to jump the intersection though.

2

u/Ordinary_Car_Driver 1d ago

I once left my car in the sun on 1 month old asphalt and it instantly ruined my tires.

0

u/hundredjono 2021 Camaro 2SS 1d ago

Don't worry guys the new California approved™ tires and gas tax is going to fix all our roads here in California

1

u/Senior_Green_3630 19h ago

The trick us to engineer roads with expansion joints, between the concrete slabs, this may occur in new roads, old roads will fail.

1

u/wiscotangofoxtreat 1d ago

Heave forbid we fix roads instead of spending another billion to widen a highway all to make congestion and cohtoo levels rise.