Potholes again ...

[BTB 500]

Hit a pothole this morning on the A322 coming up to the M3 at Bagshot ... a mile later the left front tyre blew Managed to get the S203 into a 'refuge' (Smart Motorway, no hard shoulder) and waited 50 mins for Mr RAC to come and assist with getting the space saver on. Amazingly I managed to find a local fitter with a matching Conti 5 MO in stock, shot round and had it fitted ... alloy was OK but the tracking needed correcting on that side. £122 in total.

Anyway ... the interesting bit is that the RAC man said "don't bother with trying to claim any compensation for this". He said standard practice now is to report the claim to your insurance company, where it's recorded as a no fault accident ... potentially affecting your premium on renewal. He also said they will only pay a percentage of the cost now, based on the amount of tread left on the damaged tyre.

Practically, getting a picture of this pothole wouldn't have been easy as the nearest parking place is roughly 1 km away from it. We were also on our way to compete with the dogs, now running 3 hours late. Sounds like we'd have needed to hang on to the old tyre too. So I just let it go in the end.

Has anybody successfully claimed for pothole damage recently?

 

[BTB 500]

Another observation - these refuge areas on smart motorways aren't easy to get out of safely! Unlike a hard shoulder you don't have anything like enough space to accelerate up to motorway speed, so you are pulling out into traffic that's moving much faster. This particular one was on a bend so you couldn't even see if anything was coming - in the end the RAC guy got the motorway control centre to close the inside lane via the overhead signs so we could get out, but did point out that drivers don't always observe the signs!

 

[Rayny]

Sorry to hijack the thread. -I thought that we had the brightest, best educated and most highly paid traffic planners/road engineers designing these 'smart' motorways.
It took years of planning and work, plus a couple of quid, to transform the old motorways into 'smart' ones.
Now the ordinary motorists realise how dangerous they are. - I guess the Highways authority shot themselves in both feet!

 

[Conquistador]

I too am going to hijack your thread.

I'm unable to help with your question, but I should tell you that if it was a 'smart' road/motorway and you pulled into the refuge area then it triggers sensor strips in the road surface which focus all the CCTV cameras in that area onto that refuge area (in case it is a critical emergency).

There would have been signs in the refuge area that tell you to use the emergency phone to contact the Highways England regional control centre who will either dispatch the nearest Traffic Officer to assist you or close lane 1 of the carriageway for a quite some distance before that refuge area to enable you to pull back onto the road safely, so the RAC man did the right thing. It's 3 points on your licence if you simply pull out of the emergency refuge areas onto a carriageway without using the emergency phone.

 

[BTB 500]

There might have been signs but I can't say I noticed them. We did use the phone there as it was the obvious thing to do, but I guess these days many would automatically use a mobile instead. It was actually very hard to hold a conversation with the traffic going past!

 

[Crickleymal]

There would have been signs in the refuge area that tell you to use the emergency phone to contact the Highways England regional control centre who will either dispatch the nearest Traffic Officer to assist you or close lane 1 of the carriageway for a quite some distance before that refuge area to enable you to pull back onto the road safely, so the RAC man did the right thing. It's 3 points on your licence if you simply pull out of the emergency refuge areas onto a carriageway without using the emergency phone.

How are people supposed to know these things? They aren't exactly advertised anywhere.

 

[John]

They ran a campaign on smart motorways I remember but I don't recall them mentioning that particular requirement.

If I was cynical, which of course I am not, it's almost another revenue generator for them.

 

[Merkaholic]

Mud roads in third world countries are far better than the craters we have!!! It seems like cheap fixes from the highway maintenance firms!!!!

 

[philt32]

I hit a pothole a few days ago, never thought too much of it but yesterday noticed a egg shaped lump in my tyre wall[emoji35][emoji35], 700 miles the car has done and had to spend an unexpected £175 on it, phoned the local council and asked for a claim form. Common sense tells me hole in the ground that was reported 14 days earlier (according to them) not repaired damaged my tyre, they should pay for it.

I got the standard, it’s been a bad winter and it’s taken it’s toll on the roads , I had to ask, what constitutes a bad winter? Answer....not sure really! [emoji23]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[219]

I too am going to hijack your thread.

I'm unable to help with your question, but I should tell you that if it was a 'smart' road/motorway and you pulled into the refuge area then it triggers sensor strips in the road surface which focus all the CCTV cameras in that area onto that refuge area (in case it is a critical emergency).

There would have been signs in the refuge area that tell you to use the emergency phone to contact the Highways England regional control centre who will either dispatch the nearest Traffic Officer to assist you or close lane 1 of the carriageway for a quite some distance before that refuge area to enable you to pull back onto the road safely, so the RAC man did the right thing. It's 3 points on your licence if you simply pull out of the emergency refuge areas onto a carriageway without using the emergency phone.

And what if you are Johnny Foreigner , who doesn’t read English , or illiterate/dyslexic , and can’t read these signs ?

We don’t all came from L’Angleterre and have these things in our locale .

 

[mark44]

Makes you wonder why we need an MOT when most of the roads would fail theirs

 

[Alex225]

I must admit, although in previous years I'd not given potholes much though. Probably as my average mileage has been pretty low and even in more recent years it's been motorway driving in the main part.

This year though, even I have observed just how poor the conditions of the roads have become. Ok, so down here in Surrey we had a couple of bouts of snow but hardly 3 months of deep freeze. Yet, the roads are appalling. Even on the M25/M4 there's a few holes that have appeared which at 70mph can be a real thud!

Just down the road from where I live, someone one has taken quite a lot of effort to invite local residents to the 'Caterham Pothole Club'. The road this is on, is by all accounts absolutely riddled with potholes.

Yes, those are hubcaps! haha

 

[320Alan]

I was speaking to the garage at work about something and they showed me what first glance was a hub cap no it was a half an alloy wheel. The guy had hit a pot hole and split the alloy in 2

 

[219]

I must admit, although in previous years I'd not given potholes much though. Probably as my average mileage has been pretty low and even in more recent years it's been motorway driving in the main part.

This year though, even I have observed just how poor the conditions of the roads have become. Ok, so down here in Surrey we had a couple of bouts of snow but hardly 3 months of deep freeze. Yet, the roads are appalling. Even on the M25/M4 there's a few holes that have appeared which at 70mph can be a real thud!

Just down the road from where I live, someone one has taken quite a lot of effort to invite local residents to the 'Caterham Pothole Club'. The road this is on, is by all accounts absolutely riddled with potholes.

Yes, those are hubcaps! haha

Well , being pedantic - since that is the way of web forums , they are wheel trims .

A hubcap is the small cap that goes over the hub to keep the grease in the wheel bearing and dirt out .

 

[wu56Shoozz]

I must admit, although in previous years I'd not given potholes much though. Probably as my average mileage has been pretty low and even in more recent years it's been motorway driving in the main part.

This year though, even I have observed just how poor the conditions of the roads have become. Ok, so down here in Surrey we had a couple of bouts of snow but hardly 3 months of deep freeze. Yet, the roads are appalling. Even on the M25/M4 there's a few holes that have appeared which at 70mph can be a real thud!

Just down the road from where I live, someone one has taken quite a lot of effort to invite local residents to the 'Caterham Pothole Club'. The road this is on, is by all accounts absolutely riddled with potholes.

Yes, those are hubcaps! haha

Has to be the best posting of 2018 - You get the O(s)Car for best posting.. better than your polishing ones (only cos' I'm jealous )

 

[Merc220cls]

I hit a pot hole with my XF and damaged a tyre. I submitted a claim to South Ayrshire Council and quoted from Google Earth which clearly showed the poor condition of the road sometime prior to my incident.

They paid out in full for a new tyre.