It has been a holiday time, a time when the industry tends to shut down for a while so I have little that is topical to report, except I hope you heeded the advice I gave on surface dressing chipping sizes in the December edition.
If you are taking delivery of chippings at this time, do you actually know what you are purchasing.

Let me wish you all a Happy and Prosperous new year, and that includes all my contractor and supplier colleagues, contrary to what you might believe I do have quite a number.

It's Arrived 
After what appears to be an absolute age, it must be at least six months, my copy of the new "The Shell Bitumen Handbook" has arrived. I do not know what the delay was but it was well worth waiting for.  With the amount of advertising this volume has received my recommendation is of little consequence, but I am going to recommend you buy it all the same, at a cost of £40:00 for the information it contains it is a fantastic bargain.
Please, do not just put it on the bookshelf behind your desk to impress colleagues and visitors. Read it, all of it, even the bits you do not understand. Do not be selective in what you read or you will not get an overall picture of the bituminous materials industry in relation to highways maintenance and construction. I believe if you read it all you will obtain a reasonably balanced view of the pros and cons of the various bituminous materials supplied by the industry. 
And if you do not read, or at least browse, it all you will not find the very useful small items that could easily be overlooked. 
I particularly enjoyed the reference to cutback bitumens in Chapter 4.4. If Shell are content to use the "old" easily understood grades and testing for cutback bitumen I know I am. My recommendations to my work colleagues relating to bituminous mixtures containing cutback bitumen will shortly be being revised back to what they were prior to the introduction of BS EN 12591.
But, I do have to have my but, it does annoy me the number of times the statement is made " thin surfacings are the default choice for surface course on most works of maintenance or new construction on UK carriageways". It seems this statement is included in one form or another so many times that "they" are trying to convince themselves, as well as the reader.
But to return to my original theme, buy this handbook, read it, learn about bitumen and bituminous materials and make up your own minds and do not be told what to buy. 
If you find this handbook a little difficult to comprehend ask your friendly Materials Engineer to explain it to you, if your organisation possesses such a person. 

Thin Surfacings (or bituminous mixtures laid thinly, there is a difference)
Take out the motorways and trunk roads, in England, under the control of the Highways Agency, where Thin Surfacings must be used as the surface course and I believe you will find that the many BS 4987 and BS 594 generic bituminous mixtures still command the bulk of the market.
Maybe the organisation I work for is not typical of highway engineering units in other parts of the UK, responsible for non motorway and trunk road work, but I think not. This organisation does not find it necessary to purchase higher cost proprietary Thin Surfacing materials for the type of roads that they are called upon to maintain.
Further, I find the feedback I get through the contact with laying gangs, and they are the people that know, during the course of my work, seems to support my opinion that the bulk of local road networks employ mainly generic materials. as the surface course.
I have written much on this subject, and you will find it on this website, so I will not repeat myself here. I suggest that you take the time to follow the paths I have indicated and ask the appropriate questions about "systems approval" rather than "product approvals", study the "approval guidelines" document if you can obtain a copy, and if it is finally finished. 
Also take a look at the "disclaimers" on the issued  HAPAS  certificates, and on the Highway Sector Scheme Approval documentation.
I suggest you do all this because I believe in a "local" situation if things go wrong it will ultimately be the authority in charge who will have the liability, and expense of rectifying any short comings.

Searching the Web
During this period of Christmas and New Year inactivity, and I can only take so much television, I was surfing the web for items related to highways maintenance (I am a little sad in that respect) and I found myself on the BBC website, and I was finding little that was appropriate to the subject whilst searching their news archive. 
So just out of interest, and probably a touch of vanity, I opted for their "search the web" facility and started using words and phrases that I know usually return this site somewhere on the first page on most of the good search engines to see how this site performed on their search facility.
I was more than a little surprised to find this site was not returned at all on the first ten pages of searching (I did not continue past the tenth page) relating to the many basic words and phrases I tested.
I find this observation interesting and will stick to the main search engines in future as I do not know what else the BBC may be leaving out that I may find rewarding to read if it were available.
I continue to have concerns that there is much happening, relating to the major changes that have / are taking place in the way the road network of the UK is being maintained and constructed, that is not being reported in any medium.
This includes several major investigations on road pavement characteristics commissioned by the Highways Agency / DfT that are still not published. 
I look forward to 2004 with eagerness and anticipation to see what it reveals, I am sure it will not be dull.

Stone Mastic Asphalt Explained
I really do not know what I would do without Google , it has come up with the "goods" once again, after a little browsing with a few keywords. It has found for me a website that tells me all about stone mastic asphalt (SMA) from a German background, where it was conceived and developed.
I also have to thank Viatop who produced this website even though they do sell the fibres used in SMA. 
You must visit the Viatop website  if you really want to know about "genuine" SMA, its early development and its current specification.
History, development, specification, including binder contents, it is all there and most of it is able to be downloaded in .pdf format, may I suggest you do some serious browsing.

Motto of the Month

"Prayer is indeed good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand."