Roads

Why are there so many bends in road? Today I drove down a new road and it has a very small bend that then bends straight back to where it would have been without the bend. Seems strange! But maybe it was to do with who owns the road each side although there isn't anything either side of the road.

Then I watched a film where a road in the desert (USA) has bend as well and nothing either side of the road for miles, so why do roads have these bends?

 

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a minor detail called property rights.

quicksand maybe? dead rat? hole in the head?
viable choice would be an ancient indian cemetary or something similar.

most bends in roads is the result of property rights though.

 

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highways are designed to have bends every so often to help combat driver fatigue that results from driving a straight line for too long. what sort of road are you talking about?

 

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Bends or curves in the roads are there to improve your sports car handling


techniques!

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blame the romans!

 

alexb...this is a result of a Capitalist society

 

Could also have been drunk engineers!

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there must be lots of cars at those turns...they need all that place for the many cars so that they don't cause havoc and traffic for the highway.

 

Hi alexb,

It just makes driving more interesting.

Nicola

 

Roads also sometimes remain longer than the objects next to them.
Once there were settlements, large trees, small hills, ponds etc. and the road had to avoid them all, therefore bending. In time, those settlements were abandoned and destroyed, large trees died, small hills became evened out, ponds dried out - but the road remained if it was used.

Some roads also bend in order to meet with other roads.

Also, some bends are because certain objects in nature (like large trees, a solitary rock etc.) were once used as direction signs. Written road signs are a later invention.

 

Cheers all, there are a lot more reasons for these bends than I imagined

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Its easier for cyclists to weave in and out of traffic. The lousy fuckers.

 

That's why I think roads should go to the private sector. Way more efficient.

 

Then how are they going to be maintained, who pays for them?

 

I know of some really harsh disputes among neighbors because of roads. These things not rarely go to court.

It is better if the State takes over the roads (and other intfrastructure) because people tend to fight over them incessantly, sometimes never coming to a resolution and everyone suffers the consequences.

 

The same way we pay for them now- with money.
If you want to use the road, you buy a pass, or pay tolls. I hear several roads in Cali have been turned over to private companies, and they do quite well, especially in reducing heavy traffic and the like.

See, we pay for all sorts of stuff, and because the government does it inefficiently, society ends up paying way more than they should. If you privatized it, and had people that wanted to use it pay for it, it'd be a much more fair and efficient system.

 

Roads often have curves at state boundaries as well. I'm not entirely sure why, but it might be to correct for the fact that maps on paper are flat but the globe is spherical.

 

The reason there's less traffic is because they charge more than many people can afford to spend. They eliminate travel by having tolls that don't allow poor people to drive on them.

If there's a problem with the road, say a large pot hole, and an accident is caused by it, who's responsible for the injuries and fixing of the vehicles that are destroyed?

 

My son is a manager in a surveying/engineering firm that designs roads for the state DOT. Most of the thing mentioned here are correct - like property lines, etc. But other reasons I haven't seen mentioned are also very important.

Many roads follow trails and paths that were established long ago and one BIG one is following contours to avoid low spots that might flood and require filling. And unless removal of hills is actually needed for construction (resulting in excess dirt and rock) it's generally avoided because filling is one of THE most expensive parts of road construction.