By pavement do you mean concrete, asphalt, or something else?
Concrete on the road does sit for a long period of time before they allow traffic on it, same as your driveway. Concrete is the main structural part, sitting on top of the aggregate, and must be sufficiently cured before it can handle weight. Your driveway is far thinner than the road and needs to be cured completely before heavy weight can sit in place for hours to avoid cracking, and it doesn’t cost the company that poured it more to let it sit without being used so they are going to error on the side of longer. A road tends to have pressures from traffic needs that will lead to it being on the shorter end of the time estimates.
Asphalt (aka blacktop) only takes a day or two because it doesn’t require as long to cure and it is a lot more flexible than concrete so it isn’t as in danger of cracking right away.
I mean asphalt, blacktop, tarmac, macadam, bitumen, pavement, or tar and stone and they are all the same thing. It can be driven on as soon as it is laid down on the street but has to be cured for a week in a driveway. Why would anyone think wet concrete aka Rigid Pavement could be driven on as soon as it is laid down?
Great answer, thank you
Where I live the driveways are normally cement and the roads are asphalt. Two different materials each with different curing times.
Where I live its up to the home owner, not the region. A concrete driveway is known as rigid asphalt.
It is fairly obvious that whether freshly laid or not it is wet and cannot be driven on immediately.
I asked why asphalt on the street can be driven on and not asphalt in a driveway.
Obviously wet concrete cannot be driven on until it cures.
There are different formulas for concrete, balancing cost, cure time, and ultimate strength.
Cool. The question says Why can you drive on fresh pavement immediately? So I thought it would be pretty obvious I did not mean wet concrete and meant Mcadam. asphalt, blacktop, tarmac, macadam, bitumen, pavement, or tar and stone are all the same thing.
The correct name for concrete roads is Rigid Pavement which I never mentioned.
Likely a mixture of these answers, though if you want to wait for an expert to weigh in maybe ask for that. A roadway is obviously a very different environment with a lot of money and research put into ensuring it can handle a lot of traffic and weight, having to accommodate worst case scenarios so it’s obviously going to have a very strong base, and a comparitively very durable and thick base of asphalt. Your driveway, on the other hand, is probably going to be covered in a mixture very much driven by price. If you do the minimum underlayment and thickness, you’re probably going to need to give it every advantage possible to avoid rework.
