GRRRRR - Potholes!!!

welshboyo

So, NYE - on way to gig and BANG - hit a pothole, initially just thought ouch that hurt and carried on.

A few miles in to the journey and all manner of bing bongs and warnings on the dash popped up to tell me that I was losing pressure in both front tyres.

Slowed down (from a fair old speed) and tip-toed up the nearest Sliproad to services and then the passenger tyre blew-out - so glad it was at 15 MPH and not the 75 I was doing...

Both tyres had lost a load of pressure, one obviously blew out inner wall, other one just took a massive hit and lost pressure.

So, car was recovered NY's morning and I have just found out that the car needs 2 new front tyres (£200 each) and 1 wheel (not the one that blew out )as it has actually buckled from the impact (£550 + VAT)

Absolutely fuming....and we haven't got to checking any other "non-visible" damage such as bearings etc.

So, with this in mind I am going to try a claim against council, has anyone ever done this and been successful?

TTony

For a claim to be successful, I believe you need to show that;

1. the council had been made aware of the pothole (ie it had been reported)
2. that they hadn't repaired it within their stated service level (whatever that might be) after receiving the report

I think that's the case, which gives them a big get-out loophole for not maintaining the roads.

sinbaadi

The roads do seem to have worsened significantly across the festive period.

Bridgehouse

sinbaadi said:

The roads do seem to have worsened significantly across the festive period.

He cold weather will have had a big effect on that.

Specially the habit of resurfacing roads with that silly loose chippinga grit stuff that seems to get icy and then fall to pieces like a sandcastle in a tsunami 

57Deluxe

you need good photos too

RandallFlagg

Driverless cars will be OK with this though won't they?

Maynehead

Our council is completely useless when it comes to reparing potholes...

There was a massive one on a busy street, it must have been about half a foot deep. It was left for weeks whilst drivers carefully swerved around it, until they eventually filled it in with some loose tarmac a couple of weeks ago.

Drove past it again today, well, it's opened up again as if it had never been fixed. In fact I think it's even deeper now. What a complete waste of money that was...

About 20 meters up the same street there was another 2 potholes, both about the same size, right next to each other, about 3m apart. One morning, I saw that one of them was repaired, quite nicely. However, the other one was still there, with the white bracket marked around it... They must have had all the machinery and materials right there when they repaird the first one, yet they packed it all up and went home knowing there's another one right next to it, only to come out and do it all again another day. Does nobody have any common sense any more?! 

fandango

TTony said:

For a claim to be successful, I believe you need to show that;

1. the council had been made aware of the pothole (ie it had been reported)
2. that they hadn't repaired it within their stated service level (whatever that might be) after receiving the report

I think that's the case, which gives them a big get-out loophole for not maintaining the roads.

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/road-safety/report-a-pothole/
https://www.fixmystreet.com
https://www.gov.uk/report-pothole

sweepy

If you live in Wales, get ready for the potholes to get worse the roads get EU subsidies which will stop this year .
surely your tyres and wheel are actually covered on your comprehensive insurance if damage was caused by unkept roads 

vasselmeyer

Maynehead said:

About 20 meters up the same street there was another 2 potholes, both about the same size, right next to each other, about 3m apart. One morning, I saw that one of them was repaired, quite nicely. However, the other one was still there, with the white bracket marked around it... They must have had all the machinery and materials right there when they repaird the first one, yet they packed it all up and went home knowing there's another one right next to it, only to come out and do it all again another day. Does nobody have any common sense any more?! 

Nothing to do with  common sense. If it's not on the job list, it doesn't get done.

If they can come back another day it's more job security.

ewal

Were you on a Council road? From your description - slip road etc - it sounds more likely to be the responsibility of Highways England (think that's what there called).

ETA: Or Welsh Government

welshboyo

Thanks All for your comments, an update to this is that I have spoken to the Council who have advised of the procedure for claim (which I am doing now)

Wheel is not as bad as initially thought as it looks like the fitter yesterday makes a complete pigs ear of balancing it as he thought it was warped, turns out he may have had it fitted incorrectly to balancing machine - a trip to main dealer and Alloy Wheel Specialist has confirmed all is good except for some damage to inside rim which is being sorted.

Driving home from garage today in "extreme-pothole-alert" mode, its actually quite scary how bad the roads are...

welshboyo

So...an update to this (yes, 7 months after the event...) 

Council have a massive loophole in as much as they can claim a "non-fault" as they can demonstrate that the road in question was inspected in October (3 months BEFORE the incident) and are therefore in the clear...(some 12 week interval)

What a complete bunch of .......

I have understandably vented my frustation back at the claims dept and have asked for a copy of that report and also of the one that "should" have happened 12 weeks after the October date - this pushes the further inspection date out to when this pothole mangled my wheel and as there were repairs made fairly sharpish to the area concerned after my mishap in early January it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that there were obviously recommendations of repairs required in that report.

FFS

LuttiS

That sucks

On pothole related stuff though, this made me chuckle a while ago..

Inspector Darren

boogieman

We had a lot of complaints about potholes in the local press recently. There is a loophole for the council, in that, if you report it as “a pothole” it has a different legal interpretation than a “road defect” and they can then wriggle out of liability. Most of the holes that are inspected only go down to the concrete sub-base and can apparently be classed as “road delamination” and then don’t get fixed and the council won’t fork out for repairs to damaged cars. I suspect the council play the loophole as much as they can, slippery bastards that they are. 

BigLicks67

welshboyo said:

So...an update to this (yes, 7 months after the event...) 

Council have a massive loophole in as much as they can claim a "non-fault" as they can demonstrate that the road in question was inspected in October (3 months BEFORE the incident) and are therefore in the clear...(some 12 week interval)

What a complete bunch of .......

I have understandably vented my frustation back at the claims dept and have asked for a copy of that report and also of the one that "should" have happened 12 weeks after the October date - this pushes the further inspection date out to when this pothole mangled my wheel and as there were repairs made fairly sharpish to the area concerned after my mishap in early January it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that there were obviously recommendations of repairs required in that report.

FFS

It may be worth you contacting a suitable solicitor and possibly making a claim against the council. Loophole or not it's a common problem and don't just take the word of the council. On a more serious note Cycling UK reckon 64 cyclists have been killed since 2007 due to pothole related incidents, their website has a lot of info regarding pothole problems etc, so may worth your while to have a look at that.

Iamnobody

Sorry to hear this.

Unfortunately the reality is that with even a small unitary authority is probably responsible for a network of ~ 1000 miles of roads and each road/section of road cannot be inspected daily or even weekly with the limited resources available.

The repair was probably arranged so soon after you reported the damage as a reactive maintenance job.

Highways budgets are constantly being cut - the public expect the level of service to remain the same though. It won’t happen.