Pothole damage - liability.

[Davidc]

Pothole damage - liability.

I ended up with my back wheel in a pothole earlier today.

As a result I have a bent rim which I'm going to have to replace. The hub seems OK, and the spokes seem to have survived. The rim damage is a sharp kink and IME that means replacement.

I'm about to order a new rim and new spokes (don't trust the old spokes even though they are intact, they'll be kept as spares), and will rebuild the wheel myself.

Is the local authority responsible for the pothole and the damage it has caused, and if so can I demand that they pay for the parts and the repair?

(This has happened before, but I've never thought of claiming against anyone for the damage - must be turning into an American!)

 

[accountantpete]

try here

http://www.potholes.co.uk/claims/how_to_claim

 

[Davidc]

Thanks Pete, never knew that site existed and it looks good.

If they reckon you can claim for a car then why not a bike!

If I get anywhere I'll let you know.

 

[gavintc]

A work colleague managed to get a new wheel paid for by Falkirk town council.

 

[summerdays]

I think its meant to help if you can prove they already knew about it - which is why I log potholes on the CTC's site.

 

[mangaman]

Yup. If an authority can show that they took reasonable steps to survey their roads for potholes and respond in time, and that your hole was outside of this then that's a reasonable defence.

It's a nightmare out there at the moment, and they're all working flat out to fix the millions of holes that the recent cold weather has caused. We ought to have a level of understanding.

I agree. While the potholes are a nightmare since the thaw it seems the council are doing their best to fill them

There was nothing they could have done to prevent them, so claiming for liabilty seems a tad harsh.

If everyone did that the council wouldn't have any money left to fill in the millions of holes that are still there.

Still - sorry about your knackered rim by the way.

 

[Norm]

It's a nightmare out there at the moment, and they're all working flat out to fix the millions of holes that the recent cold weather has caused. We ought to have a level of understanding.

There was nothing they could have done to prevent them, so claiming for liabilty seems a tad harsh.

Indeed.

I damaged my car just before Christmas on a monster pothole (I swear there was a polaris sub in it with me!) which appeared in the first round of this year's "mild" (TM Met Office) winter and got the forms to make a claim.

I left the forms in the office over Christmas, though, then got ill and then the weather got even worse. I haven't send in the claim as I reckon it's a bit churlish given the volume of good work that is being done.

Oh, and the pothole I hit was repaired within 36 hours of appearing.

 

[Tynan]

the roads are terrible, I split the front rim last week, rebuild and ther rear is well bent after hitting a different horror a few days later, that one flatted the rear as well, halfway up the Bow flyover, joy

 

[andyhunter]

technically if you pay tax, thn you can claim long as you have a picture of the pothole and suroundings and the damage then if they wont give in they would back down if you state you shall take legal action because they would not want to pay out court fees. you need proof of the pothole and witnesses are better as the bast*rds would try and wipe your eye pretending it was not there by sending out a team to fix it.

 

[mangaman]

technically if you pay tax, thn you can claim long as you have a picture of the pothole and suroundings and the damage then if they wont give in they would back down if you state you shall take legal action because they would not want to pay out court fees. you need proof of the pothole and witnesses are better as the bast*rds would try and wipe your eye pretending it was not there by sending out a team to fix it.

But often they weren't there until the snow melted andy - at least in my experience here.

In November the roads were OK.

The snow came and iced over all the roads in town here.

The potholes were there as soon as the snow had gone - not a lot the council could have done really, although a bugger to us all.

An act of God as it were. Better to put it down to the "joys" of the British climate I'd say

 

[Broadside]

I won't be popular by saying this, but if you hit the pothole then why should the council pay? Fair enough the pothole is not meant to be there, but there has been extreme weather and it takes time to fix the damage to the roads.

Claiming off the council is not free. It hits every tax payer in the local area, so while it may feel like a temporary triumph it is really a false economy. Making claims in this way is what makes everyone's lives more expensive to live these days. Sometimes we need to take the cost out of our own pockets for our own mistakes and reduce the burden on everyone else.

 

[lukesdad]

I won't be popular by saying this, but if you hit the pothole then why should the council pay? Fair enough the pothole is not meant to be there, but there has been extreme weather and it takes time to fix the damage to the roads.

Claiming off the council is not free. It hits every tax payer in the local area, so while it may feel like a temporary triumph it is really a false economy. Making claims in this way is what makes everyone's lives more expensive to live these days. Sometimes we need to take the cost out of our own pockets for our own mistakes and reduce the burden on everyone else.

Spot on. Well said. We ve got enough freeloaders in our society without cyclists joining in.

 

[summerdays]

I won't be popular by saying this, but if you hit the pothole then why should the council pay? Fair enough the pothole is not meant to be there, but there has been extreme weather and it takes time to fix the damage to the roads.

Claiming off the council is not free. It hits every tax payer in the local area, so while it may feel like a temporary triumph it is really a false economy. Making claims in this way is what makes everyone's lives more expensive to live these days. Sometimes we need to take the cost out of our own pockets for our own mistakes and reduce the burden on everyone else.

It depends - if the pothole is recent then I agree - however if its one that is on the system and hasn't been fixed in a reasonable time period - and then I come off then in those circumstances I think it is fair to claim for damage. I hit surface irregularities last year and came off and broke my arm - I didn't claim or even think about it.

The latest one I have reported is at the bottom of a hill, on a bend, on the line the cyclist would take. I think its dangerous given the position though it isn't big. In the dark the cyclist would have little chance of seeing and avoiding it.

 

[Titan yer tummy]

It is their fault

....There was nothing they could have done to prevent them, so claiming for liabilty [sic] seems a tad harsh.

If everyone did that the council wouldn't have any money left to fill in the millions of holes that are......QUOTE]

I am afraid I believe it is their fault. You may have difficulty proving it, but you pay taxes to these B~!!*rs to keep the roads in a serviceable condition. If they used our taxes for the purpose we pay them rather that duck houses and moat cleaning then the roads would be in much better condition.

Potholes normally occur when water gets into a previous repair and and then freezes so dislodging the patch. If the council or utility concerned had carried out the repair properly in the first place water would not have penetrated.

Good Luck and please do not give up.

 

[MartinC]

Just to add a couple of points to this. Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to keep the roads fit for use. They can demonstrate this by having a sensible policy of inspection and repair and proving that they follow it. So if a hole appears overnight then you can't just argue that it shouldn't be there and it's the council's fault. If there's a dangerous pothole that's been reported then the council need to respond fairly promptly or they've failed to meet their obligations and they will be liable. Clearly in a situation where the weather has triggered lots of holes then you have to have a more realistic view of promptly.

It's also worth remembering that many potholes are the result of poor maintenance. By allowing the surface to degrade the recent weather has had the chance to create far more problems than it would with well maintained surfaces. So there's an element of false economy in skimping on maintenance to keep cost's down.

We've mandated the LA's to provide decent roads and we pay taxes to enable them to do it so I don't see any need to be reticent in chasing them where they've failed. Whether we pay enough tax (or spend it on the wrong things) is another question.