Mrs B had a rant recently about British roads. As she rightly said, they're much better maintained in Japan.
Japan has lots of rainfall, & is densely populated, so apart from the southern areas that don't freeze, one would expect the same problems we have here, but they seem to be much, much less. I don't think one can even put it all down to less spending (though some of it, yes). I think the quality of work here is lower, in general, & local authorities who are the customers accept that low quality. For example, our street was resurfaced not long ago. Patches of the surface started breaking up immediately: instant potholes. It's not the only street I've seen that happen to, & I've not seen the contractors brought back to fix it, despite complaints from residents.
The standard of road repairs after assorted owners of buried infrastructure dig holes is also poor. We have a hollow in our street because several years ago Thames Water didn't restore the road surface to where it was after a burst pipe washed out enough soil to cause subsidence around a hole. They filled in the hole level with the lowered edges. Again, they weren't brought back to put it right.