Watch flame-throwing ‘Dragon patcher’ truck use FIRE to melt down 5,000 ‘diabolical’ potholes on Brit roads
WATCH the incredible moment a flame-throwing “dragon patcher” truck uses fire to meltdown potholes on the UK’s roads.
Devon county council says more than 5,000 potholes have been repaired on its roads in the last six months, thanks to the device.
The machines, which looks rather similar to an ordinary road sweeping truck but with an extended arm at the front, shoot out flames which helps the repair material bond to the existing road surface.
Footage above shows one of the devices being put through its paces as it blasts the road with its flames, moving up and down over the pothole.
It then appears to blast the repair with steam to seal the repair up.
Thanks to additional funding, the council has been able to double the number of patching teams, from two to four.
In a Facebook post by Hampshire County Council, which also has the “dragon patchers”, it claimed the machines could “fix a pothole in a few minutes, up to five times faster than traditional methods,” leaving the road ready for traffic immediately afterwards.”
This year, a record number of potholes have been reported, with 24,000 called in the first four months of the financial year, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
That represents a rise of 54 per cent, on the same period last year.
Devon Councillor Jerry Brook told the Corporate Infrastructure and Regulatory Services Scrutiny Committee he had seen “considerable improvement” on the county’s roads.
He said: “There has been an enormous amount of work and therefore improvement to our network in quite a short space of time.
“Some places are diabolical still and they may never get done, but I want to say congratulations to the team as there has been quite considerable improvement.”
The council’s highways department was helped by an extra £12m in funding.
More than £7million of this has been put towards capital funding, which allowed the council to double the number of patching teams.
Last month, the world’s first pothole-filling robot has taken to the streets for initial tests of its AI tech.
The bizarre device looks like a cross between a Cybertruck and a slug, but its creators claim it can detect damage to road surfaces early and kills off potholes before they even develop.
CAR-DESTROYING potholes are the biggest bugbear among British motorists.
By Martina Bet
The sorry state of our roads was the main concern for almost six in 10 people, according to research by the RAC.
So it is really no surprise that filling an extra one million potholes a year was one of the few new policy announcements in Labour’s election manifesto.
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh reaffirmed that promise during a visit to Blackpool yesterday.
The cabinet minister wanted to see firsthand how the Council is using high-definition cameras and artificial intelligence to spot road damage early.
She promised to replicate their success across England, backing local authorities with millions in extra funding.
But can Labour really afford to keep its word?
In June, the PM insisted his massive pothole blitz was “fully costed” and backed by “enough money” – with £320million coming from deferring the controversial Arundel A27 bypass.
He also pledged the amount would be on top of the £8.3bn the Tory government had promised for road repairs after scrapping HS2.
But Rachel Reeves’ penny-pinching push this summer saw the major transport project in West Sussex scrapped in a bid to shore up the public finances.
And Government sources told The Sun the £8.3bn 11-year roads investment plan was being “assessed in the round”.
Extra cash for potholes and road repairs will be announced in the next Spending Review.
It will determine whether Labour can deliver on its promises or if the funding shortfalls and political compromises will leave motorists dodging the same hazardous holes for years to come.
The gadget was developed by Robotiz3d and the University of Liverpool, in partnership with Hertfordshire County Council Highways Engineers.
It has since undergone “real-world” testing on the county’s roads, where over 20,000 potholes have already been fixed in recent years.