tony de wonderful

Seems like just a short time ago we were talking about post-winter potholes now it's like Groundhog day....

Just around my area the same craters open up in the ground again (having been semi-repaired last year), like that massive mouth thing in the sand in Star Wars, waiting to lure in and destroy unwitting motorists.

Here's an article from the Telegraph.

Record number of potholes and no money to repair them

Road maintenance budgets are down 20% now though so this year it's going to be worse and the backlog will get longer.

They could put the price of petrol up to help pay for it maybe?

what would scooby do

Potholes is my favourite musketeer.

RA Dunk

Isn't this why we pay road tax?

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

The basic problem, especially around towns, is that a few years ago local councils suspended the yearly "surface dressing" of urban roads, that's tar and chippings to you and me.

Now the tar, as well as sticking the chippings down, also fills any cracks in the road. Don't put the tar down, the cracks are still there and, come winter, fill with water, which then freezes, expanding as it does, and widens the crack. It's called "freeze-thaw weathering", and causes quick damage to rocks too.

For every year that they just patch potholes, this can only get worse: (And is the reason why damage occurs at the joins between old and new tarmac, road repairs, etc etc, that's where the cracks are, they needed to have filled the edges with tar, and obviously haven't.

Quite what we, as motorists, can do about it, I don't honestly know.

We need the motoring organisations to take on local councils big time to force them to a) do their jobs, and b) compensate any driver, in full, for any damage occurring to his vehicle due to their negligence. At the moment, far too little is done, with councils refusing to pay out and motorists just accepting their decision.

Perhaps we should all start approaching "no win-no fee" lawyers?

tony de wonderful

We need road repair budgets set by some 3rd party so the government isn't able to keep cutting it all the time and using motorists as a cash cow.

The local councils are useless and skint - I think they only pay to repair secondary roads - we need to unify the whole of road maintenance into one body.

It's a bloody joke that we pay so much in fuel duty and road tax but local councils use council tax to pay for road repairs!

It's also obscene that you have local council people on £200k per year salaries.

95turbowagon

iTrader: (17)

A few of the roads i use on my daily commute were resurfaced a few months ago, they have now completely fallen apart and most of the new surface has disapeared and worn back through to the old surface, when you drive on the road it sounds like the underneath of the car is having a tarmac shower as it's disintegrated to basically a powder.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

This is, of course, true. My eldest was almost hit, head on, last night, by a woman driver avoiding a row of potholes. She was so intent on NOT going into them that she veered right onto his side of the road WITHOUT LOOKING. Only his quick thinking saved them both.

She DID have the grace to apologise.

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

That's why they changed road tax to vehicle excise duty


You pay your vehicle excise duty for the pleasure of driving on the best roads in the world.

TurboAndy

iTrader: (1)

The roads round here are a f**king joke, Ive seen better roads in Afghanistan. What I would like to know is what all our road tax is spent on cos it ant our roads. Some of us on here pay over £400 year road tax, FOR WHAT.........

Dirk Diggler 75

^^^ Spot On TurboAndy.....
It's a fecking disgrace.....
This country is fecked......

Allan

iTrader: (1)

Wifey done a tyre last night, spent all day on the phone trying to sort out a claim, and source a replacement tyre. Car (Mazda 2) is only a year old but would you believe the tyres are obsolete, or more correctly not stocked in the UK.

So have had to stump up for two tyres and an alignment check. Means the fronts won't match the backs, so will probably end up changing the other two at some point. Car's only done 5K.

Not impressed.....

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Errrrrrrrr, funny you should mention Afghanistan, there's a clue in where our money has gone/is still going.

Another clue is :Iraq

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Where there's blame, there's a claim. Get onto one of the no win, no fee lads. Start the ball rolling. It's what I shall do if ANY vehicle from my family is damaged.

Councils CANNOT be allowed to get away with it.

--------

You can report potholes on here,http://www.fillthathole.org.uk/
might not help you directly but if you have to put inna claim you can (possibly) prove that the local council are aware of it. Be aware,you cannot claim (no harm in tryin though) for damage caused by a pothole that you are aware of.... Just dont let the "where theres blame theres a claim" brigade get hold of you,they'll lynch you fer claiming money uneccesarilly..
AHH, sum c*nt spell un-ness-a celery fer mi,cheers!

andythejock01wrx

One of the local main roads has in the past couple of weeks picked up 4 or 5 HUGE potholes - the kind which reallycould break a spring. If a cyclist ventured into them, they'd never be seen again!

Of course they are strewn across the road so driver's have no option but to cross on to the other side of the road (on a 60mph). So, in the dark mornings you see all these cars swerving to avoid the potholes.

Now, what has the council done? They've placed a sign on the road saying "Temporary Road Surface". Thing is, how long will it be there?!

andythejock01wrx

The legal position on claiming for pothole damage to vehicles is that the council must prove that they carried out reasonably regular inspections of the highway (they are literally supposed to keep a log). So you can claim.

The difficulty can be that despite this, judges sometimes side with the councils as they wish to avoid "floodgates" cases which come out of taxpayers money - I came across this studying for my ACII (Insurance exams).

speye91

Local News tonight,reported on a DIY fill your own Pothole kit.Kid ya not.

TurboAndy

iTrader: (1)

That doesnt suprise me.

Going off topic a bit I know but when we had all the snow and ice before Christmas there was a stretch of road linking Bedford and Milton Keynes (the A421) and neather Buckinghamshire or Bedfordshire council would grit the bit of road that goes over the border of the two just grit and snow plough up to the last round about and leave the rest, was 2" think of ice but when a big accident happend because of it I think they were made to clear the road of ice.

Allan

iTrader: (1)

Council sending me a claim form, lets see how we get on. They won't get away with it if I can help it.

I've got google street view images which show the road already starting to break up, presumably they must be least a year old if not more. It's going to be difficult to get a photo as it's a busy road.

mart360

Makes you laugh, we pay "road tax" to go towards the supposed upkeep & maintenance of the roads.

Yet its local councils who are responsible for the upkeep & maintenance. of our roads, and there always pleading poverty, despite it being shown they have millions stashed away!! (according to the press btw)


Mart

tony de wonderful

We don't pay 'road tax' any more, it's now VED!

If the Gov had to rationalise it they would probably say it's to reduce climate change! LOL

So fwd thinking is our gov - they run on the 'news cycle' but 'care' about what happens 50,000 years from now. Conveniently it's also an excuse to tax us more!

Leslie

Did you not expect the freezing weather to reopen and/or generate new potholes, especially where substandard repairs have been carried out?

It was anounced that every pothole costs £100 on average to patch up, which is usually a temporary repair in an attempt to avoid damage claims by drivers.

Les

Allan

iTrader: (1)

Well my claim was rejected

Apparently I was the first to notify them of the pot hole (well my wife actually), since their last inspection in November. Therefore they weren’t aware of the problem and are therefore not liable. So everybody who claims after me gets paid?

Anybody with similar an experience ? what did you do?

There're trying to frighten me off by saying if I wish to take it any further, I should take legal advice.

Dougmy06wrx

iTrader: (4)

My council said that they wasnt going to pay for my wheel when it got buckled a few years back.

They said that they had inspections every 187 days and last time they checked there was nothing there.

They have so many ways of getting out of paying I hope you manage to get something from them!

Doug

legb4rsk

Strange how they have the money to put in loads of speed bumps around here.They are all well made & in perfect condition.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Pretty much the story I've read everywhere is that they're only liable if they already knew about it and didn't fix within a reasonable time of finding out (about 2 weeks is what most courts consider reasonable here). In your case that would mean you have just two options left, either file a Freedom of Information Request to obtain proof of whether they knew about it (it's free to do, but might be a lot of hassle), or try and sue (you'd almost certainly lose, if they're telling the truth about you being first to report it).

madscoob

iTrader: (3)

option 3 blackwidow catapult and drive by on council lorry or van

Allan

iTrader: (1)

They did send quite a lot of griff with the letter, I've not read it all but it does outline all the previous repairs.

The annoying thing is that it was repaired within 3 days of me reporting it, so it was obviously quite urgent. I know somebody else who put in a claim 3-4 days after mine so it will be intersting to see on what grounds they get refused.

Cheers

Leslie

The councils are avioding their duty to repair the roads and have been doing so for a long time now.

There was a time when councils used to have a pride in how they maintained their roads. Now they are allowing them to deteriorate and eventually it will be impossible to repair them properly because of the major cost involved.

They closed a section of our local roads for what was thought to be resurfacing but all they have done is to patch up holes which will soon reappear anyway.

Motorists already get ripped off for more than enough cash anyway without increasing motoring taxes any more. Time that more responsibility and honesty was displayed by those concerned.

Les

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

As Alcazar says, they rarely repair pot holes poperly. The join between new and old tarmac must be filled with cold pour to seal it. Without this, teh hole will open up again due to water ingress.

Last year alot of potholes by me were repaired and sealed properly, which is the first time I've ever encountered for as long as I can remember. However, whilst these repairs haven't opened up again, other older repairs and decaying surfacing has.

My road is terrible....it had its top surface "recycled" about 5 years ago - problem is it was too far gone and too busy a road to use such cheap and nasty surfacing methods. Now the whole top layer is shelling off all over the place, it started 4 years ago and has constantly been patched ever since...Whilst a quiet cul-de-sac 5mins walk away where a councillor lives had their road totally resurfaced. Yup, it was a Labour councillor, and yup, it was Labour running our council back then....So you can use that example as an idea of where tax payer's road repair budget is being misdirected over the past 13 years.

Reminds me I need to check the geometry on my car - I've hit a few huge potholes over winter as well as a unmarked speedhump at 30mph (dark road). The steering feedback does't feel quite as positive as it once was so I think the tracking is toeing out slightly.