Forget The Math & Dumb On The Aussie Concrete Driveway
I think our driveway is in breach of the Australian Design Rules. Let’s check it out!
I did a rough calculation of the gradient this morning, which i estimate is approximately 1:3.87 …and i think that converts to about 26%. Perhaps i can be more forgiving and give it a 1:4 rating, but i don’t think i can grant it a of 1:5! (20%). I have experienced driveways much steeper than this, so who’s counting?
My husband had acquired a 220kg lathe a few weeks ago, and there was no way that the initial van delivering it could back down our steep driveway with that kind of weight. The delivery-van needed to return back to Penrith in order to have the lathe loaded up onto a truck with a “crane”. There’s no way the truck could back-down our driveway without risking the scraping of it’s underside of it’s guts either. It was a very intriguing process of “when there’s a will, there’s a way” when it came to my husband’s problem solving on how to get the lathe transported into the shed. It was an amazing adventure and i’m in awe of how resourceful my husband can be when it comes to solving problems like this.
The recommended maximum driveway gradient for commercial vehicles is about 5-8%. For other vehicles it’s something like 10-15%. While many cars can handle 1:5 (20%), it is considered extreme for a short distance. Maybe the standards are a little different for this region - as the slopes are so extreme, by nature!
Our driveway was clearly built no differently to the way my parent’s driveway was addressed during the expansion & widening of the nearby road & bridge at their place. You’d think that a government-run service attending to public infrastructure would pay attention to their own legislative rules, but no - the re-construction of my parents driveway extending from a MAJOR road was done in the following fashion;
“Ok boys, we’ve got some kind of slope here, so let’s just dump the concrete onto it now!”
Forget about “measure twice & cut once” - this was the equivalent of big men playing with concrete the same way as little children build big mountains out of dirt with their toy dump-trucks.
The final gradient was so steep, that the cars could not exit the driveway without getting their guts scraped with heavy grinding from underneath.
As for the re-shaping of my parent’s driveway, Mr.Head-Engineer, did not pull out any measuring tapes nor calculator. It was again left to;
“…oops! The slope just needs to be much, much longer.”
Yes, of course - i guess leaving a decision to layman’s common-sense on just “how-much-longer” it really should’ve been is perfectly ok like that, especially when the initial time-consuming mistake wasting so many thousands of tax-payer’s money is staring so point-blank in front of your face.
I remember my class on gradient standards during interior design. People in wheelchairs don’t have the horse-power to wheel up on ramps that are too steep. It was so important to respect the design standards, that’s how i was being trained.
It wasn’t only the clearance level for the undersides of vehicles that was overlooked with the re-construction of the driveway at my parent’s place, but so too was the “line of sight” distance as well. They built a tall wall which obscured the line of sight with oncoming traffic onto a major road. It eventually had to be knocked down to a lower height as well. Time & money, guzzled up by people who can’t give a fucking shit about the math human error. It’s only human to make mistakes i suppose.
Maybe the contruction boyz acquired driveway-itus because the front-yards of soooo MANY houses were affected & eaten up by the major roadworks, which perhaps lead towards boredom & complacency with it all. One would hope that this was not the same attitude of engineering involved the expansion of the bridge that extends over a suburban railway!
The driveway at our place is much worse with regards to the line-of-sight issue.
Due to the gradient being so steep, the line-of-sight is completely obscured by the angle. You can’t see ANYTHING when you’re backing out of our driveway for a while, which is not safe. If there is an animal or a human walking across the footpath during that time, you won’t see it. As the gradient is so steep, it requires “hill-start” power with the accelerator pedal of the car as well, which makes the process of “slowly” banking out onto the road, a moderately stressful experience. It takes “muscle” to back the car out, and yet we can’t “grunt” up the hill - due to the paranoia of squashing a cat or a passing human who will naturally assume that we can see them.
This is not the only hazzard with this design, because we’re also backing out into a T-intersection as well.
Well, I guess it’s not as bad as our neighbour’s driveway next door, which is literally backing head-on into the intersection. Enough to make me realise why feng-shui concepts have often mentioned that it’s not good to have your house facing an intersection head-on like this. It’s dangerous - as you need to scan for 3 different directions of traffic at the same time.
We’re relatively fortunate, because two extensions of the t-section we back out onto are cul-de-sacs (no-through roads). The level of traffic on road & on-foot is very low. This situation would be very hazzardous if it were a very busy & major road with lots of tourists walking by.
I guess safety on the roads is hard to manage in this region. There are many road signs that signal “SLOW! Concealed Driveways!” here. The many beautiful “trees” that line the streets here are also hazzards obscuring line-of-sight. It makes me all the more appreciative that winter enables more safety due to the desidous non-native trees that are planted everywhere - i can at least see-through the branches now! *lol*
This area we live in is simply a “quiet spot”, framed & blocked by the Blue Mountains National park. Houses block the ends of the cul-de-sacs, so there is not much possibility for road-expansions in the distant future.
I guess design like this has an inhibiting kind of quality. It traps & prevents future extensions & housing development. You can’t build anymore houses here, unless they get demolished and turned into high-density appartments. The low-density nature of this area probably also makes things a little more neighbourly. We have no motivation to zoom-out of our driveways. I guess it makes everyone that little bit extra-cautious when backing out of their driveways over here as well.
In the meanwhile, i urge all women wearing stilettos to exercise great caution if they ever try to walk down our humble driveway. ;D
