Pot Holes

[DME]

Does anyone know how to claim back damage caused by pot holes?

I managed to hit one and I now have a funny noise coming from the NSF (prob shock absober gone) and a crack in my instrument cluster.

Thing that gets me is I was only doing 25mph, I drive down that road everyday and know its there, but had to avoid a bloody cyclist coming the other way. (one way street as well)

Thanks and sorry if this has been asked before, had a quick search and came up blank.

Cheers,

DME

 

[Beetnik]

Claim from the local authority but be aware that they have an absolute defence - all roads are subject to an inspection regime. If the road has been inspected at the proper intervals and the pot hole wasn't there last time it was inspected then they're not liable unless it's been reported to them in the meantime and not repaired within the prescribed period.

You were aware of it - next time you are aware of a large pothole you may wish to do your civic duty and report it!

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Yep, a letter to your local authority - ideally with a photo which shows the scale of the pothole, and an estimate of the repair cost or receipt - should do the trick.

 

[Roger Jones]

Here is the site giving you all government links, central and local:

Tagish: Web Content Management, Transformational Government, Complaints Management, Case Management

If your local authority is like mine (Herts), there will be a channel on their website for reporting highway faults. Herts is pretty good at responding and usually deals with pot-holes within 48 hours. I think reports from the general public actually get picked up immediately on laptops in their repair trucks.

On the other hand, I recently reported a traffic light blocked in both directions by vegetation. The county highways dept had to pass it on to the district highways people and it took them ten days to deal with what was an important safety problem.

These people do depend on reports from the general public, so it's worth getting into the habit.

 

[ricmerc]

Here's a site I used recently to report pot-holes and got a very quick response. FixMyStreet
The council (Devon) took action the following day.

 

[MeRcEdEs-star]

I say 'fill that hole'

 

[smiddyboy1]

Potholes.co.uk - Home Page

 

[mercedes lover]

I'm sick of pot holes where I live in North West London, there was one that I hit once becasue I couldn't pull over as some idiot was too close next me, I hit it with such a bang that I was worried I ruined my suspension, after that I avoided it for the roughly 3 months it was left to get worse! The road tax we pay and this country can't even get a hole filled in 3 months!

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Exits of motorway services are particularly bad.

When we were heading to Cornwall a few weeks ago we stopped at Strensham Services, rain was very heavy and surface water everywhere.

We dropped down a huge pothole which I couldn't see due to the amount of water, and every one of the four axles thumped into it. I stopped because it was so bad.

Proceded with caution and thudded into two more.

When we arrived I noticed that the mount on our roof aerial was broken - I'm 90% sure it was that pothole!!

 

[mercedes lover]

Years ago on my Fiesta I paid to get the tracking re-realigned and 6 weeks later I hit a pot hole and I'm sure it put it back out, so I thought forget it, what's the point of getting it done again as this will probably happen again.

 

[EDZ649]

I'm sick of pot holes where I live in North West London, there was one that I hit once becasue I couldn't pull over as some idiot was too close next me, I hit it with such a bang that I was worried I ruined my suspension, after that I avoided it for the roughly 3 months it was left to get worse! The road tax we pay and this country can't even get a hole filled in 3 months!

Road tax goes directly to the Government, it has nothing to do with highway maintenance. Your local authority is responsible for it's own highways within its boundaries.

 

[mercedes lover]

Road tax goes directly to the Government, it has nothing to do with highway maintenance. Your local authority is responsible for it's own highways within its boundaries.

That's ok I feel better knowing all the counci tax i pay and they can't fill in some pot holes, so I take it our road tax goes to doing up MP's second homes!

 

[EDZ649]

That's ok I feel better knowing all the counci tax i pay and they can't fill in some pot holes, so I take it our road tax goes to doing up MP's second homes!

You guessed it!

 

[Beetnik]

I'm sick of pot holes where I live in North West London, there was one that I hit once becasue I couldn't pull over as some idiot was too close next me, I hit it with such a bang that I was worried I ruined my suspension, after that I avoided it for the roughly 3 months it was left to get worse! The road tax we pay and this country can't even get a hole filled in 3 months!

If you'd reported it to the local authority then it would likely have been repaired quickly. There's some reliance put on the public to report potholes - you can't expect the local authority to spot every pot hole quickly - well, you could, but the rise in council tax to pay for the army of inspectors required would bring tears to your eyes.

 

[mercedes lover]

If you'd reported it to the local authority then it would likely have been repaired quickly. There's some reliance put on the public to report potholes - you can't expect the local authority to spot every pot hole quickly - well, you could, but the rise in council tax to pay for the army of inspectors required would bring tears to your eyes.

They had inspected them because for about 2 months they had a massive thick yellow line painted round them, and in reply for the point of an army of inspectors putting up council tax, I think anyone here that regularly drives in France would agree their roads in general are in a better condition than ours, and my Family there doesn't pay the sort of council tax we do.

 

[st13phil]

They had inspected them because for about 2 months they had a massive thick yellow line painted round them

I reported a number of potholes on short section of road I use daily to Oxfordshire County Council. Nothing happened for a month so I reported them again. A further month went by and suddenly white paint appeared around most, but not all, of the reported holes. I was about to report them again and make the point that trying to fill them up with paint was ineffective - I know, sarcasm really is the lowest form of wit - when some have been filled in.

At least two of the holes remaining are large enough to cause a motorcyclist a serious problem if they had a wheel drop in one which would be remarkably easy to do in wet conditions because they fill with water and look like puddles. I feel a letter to the District Auditor coming on...

 

[Colin_b]

Where I live (west Cumbria), they have a fairly rigorous inspection scheme, which seems to work well. They have a few people who visit each parish every couple of months and do minor maintainence, like cleaning signs, trimming foliage, clearing drains and repairing small pot holes (bigger ones are filled in, and the proper repair team called out).

Between visits problems can be reported online, or direct to the man-in-a-van on his mobile.

Still get the occasional problem, 2 nights of frost and heavy traffic can cause large holes in 48 hours.

This scheme has been running 2 years, had improved things greatly.

 

[st13phil]

Sounds good. Around here it would appear that the only "inspection regime" that takes place is by Joe Public. Either that or the inspectors are blind/lazy/incompetent

 

[Noodle-Pulp]

Just my 2p worth...

I have a road near my house which had deep potholes from 1999 on (when I moved to my house) I reported it several times to the council and on a couple of occasions I've actually caught them measuring the depth.. their (the councils) excuse was they weren't deep enough to warrant a priority.

Some time later (in May 2001) after I just about gave up on the whole thing I was driving down this road, swerved to miss the pothole, and just clipped a cyclist..who had a bit of a tumble..

I explained this to the council and they still said it was my fault and that there was no more money in the budget to repair potholes this year.
(This was in May, their budget runs from April to April..)

Luckily for me the cyclist didn't press for any compensation claim....and in 2003 they filled the hole in and that was that.. 2 days after and the filling from said hole was gone! I started my complaints again..

Finally they resurfaced the whole road in 2005...

 

[Colin_b]

Sounds good. Around here it would appear that the only "inspection regime" that takes place is by Joe Public. Either that or the inspectors are blind/lazy/incompetent

Used to be similar here, but damage claims forced a rethink, and prevention is turning out cheaper than cure.