More than 1,000 people have signed a petition calling for roads to be properly resurfaced, ending the practice of surface dressing.

The petition was started by Danny Shafrir on June 11 after he apparently nearly fell off his bike while descending on a road which had been surface dressed in Theydon Bois in Essex.

The petition calls for the government to resurface roads instead of using a process called “surface dressing.” This cost-cutting technique happens when a road is scraped, layered with tar and covered in stone chippings. The stone chippings are slowly embedded into the road by slow moving traffic.

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One problem with this is that traffic can cause the chippings to accumulate on the sides of the road, creating patches of gravel which can cause dangerous for cyclists.

It’s not just rider’s lives at stake with motorists’ precious paint jobs being subject to scratches that the thrown-up debris can cause.

One person who had signed the petition, which can be seen here, said “I nearly had an accident on my bike last year because of the pools of loose chippings that get left behind.”

Another called the process “bloody dangerous” for both cyclists and car drivers.