Pothole damage - liability.

[Davidc]

Spoke to a woman at East Devon council (who own this pothole) and she was very helpful, polite and sensible.

Told me what to send, and they'd pay if they agreed it was a valid claim. "And wouldn't it be easier to get a shop to repair the wheel?".

 

[knonist]

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.

I email to the cambridge city council directly and received written reply from them to proof I have reported them.

 

[knonist]

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.

for small potholes then I agree with you.
But if the potholes is reported and the council failed to repair the large potholes (and i mean deep one)within a reasonable period within (a few days), then the council should be respondable as it could be lethal to road users.

 

[HJ]

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

It is not an act of God or the British climate, it is a lack of investment, pure and simple! The poor over taxed cyclist is subsidising all those free-loading drivers...

 

[psmiffy]

for small potholes then I agree with you.
But if the potholes is reported and the council failed to repair the large potholes (and i mean deep one)within a reasonable period within (a few days), then the council should be respondable as it could be lethal to road users.

In this day and age most councils do not repair their own potholes - they sub all the highway work out to Highway Service Providers - typically its about £67 to fill in a small pothole - However in some cases the Highway Service Provider in order to win the bid will bid lower than the cost - In the believe that maybe they can do it cheaper, more efficiently and that there will possibly fewer potholes to fill in than estimated - They are then not that keen to fill in extra potholes unless extra monies can be found from the client for "extraordinary circumstances". While they are all arguing the toss about if the extra money is justified the number of potholes that are filled does not equal the number that need filling - causes a backlog and so on and so forth - the latest estimate I believe is that it would take five years and several £100m of extra money to do the job.

So in order to encourage the system to get its act in order I would claim if you believe that you have grounds

 

[summerdays]

I email to the cambridge city council directly and received written reply from them to proof I have reported them.

You get a message from the CTC to say when they have reported it to the council. This way anyone can see that the problem has been reported, when and if by me it will probably have a photo or two as well. And after a few months they (CTC) emailed me to ask what the current state of the pothole was in the case of one of mine - so I updated it that it was still a problem. Its poor concrete surface that they can't just fill - I can understand that but it provides a dangerous surface due to all the lips where the concrete has settled and cracked.

 

[dav1d]

Take a photo of the pothole. A friend od my Aunt's had an accident whilst cycling due to a hole in the road. He complained to the council, and they filled the hole up that night claiming there was no hole! Luckily, he'd taken photos to prove they were lying. Don't know how far he got though.

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!)

 

[lukesdad]

They say £ 30 a pot hole in wales must work cheaper or bodge it.

 

[lukesdad]

They say £ 30 a pot hole in wales must work cheaper or bodge it.

Hang on, on tonights news they ve put it at £46. Crikey inflations worse than I thought.

Makes you laugh, think of a number double it or, half it depending on you feel at the time. Knobs

 

[psmiffy]

Hang on, on tonights news they ve put it at £46. Crikey inflations worse than I thought.

Makes you laugh, think of a number double it or, half it depending on you feel at the time. Knobs

Depends on where you are - take a big number of pound notes and divide by a smaller big number of potholes

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/t...es-cost-drivers-1m-a-day-in-repair-bills.html

According to the above I was wrong "latest" estimate is 11 years and £500M

 

[mangaman]

Sorry to be so old fahioned.

I still have managed to negiotiate the millions of potholes in Chichester on my bike and car.

OK - they're a bummer, life is sometimes. Sometimes it's late June, still light at 8.30pm and I'm riding round the Downs with no traffic and life seems perfect.

I really can't see the logic in claiming money off the council (which ultimately comes from us) for pothole damage, while the same council are busy filling in these potholes.

It may mean a few quid for individuals in the short term, but bigger taxes for everyone in the long term.

 

[Crankarm]

I don't have any sympathy for local councils. For every £5 they raise in council tax, £2 goes toward their pension pots .

Having said that I have had 2 serious offs in the last couple of years as a result of riding into and out of big pot holes at night and when trying to avoid getting run down by cars. Each repair/replacement cost me a fair amount of money. I have still to claim for these, the most recent, the hole had grass growing in the bottom of it and bent the front Ultegra rim on my road bike .

 

[mangaman]

I don't have any sympathy for local councils. For every £5 they raise in council tax, £2 goes toward their pension pots .

Having said that I have had 2 serious offs in the last couple of years as a result of riding into and out of big pot holes at night and when trying to avoid getting run down by cars. Each repair/replacement cost me a fair amount of money. I have still to claim for last july's hole which had grass growing in the bottom of it and bent the front Ultegra rim on my road bike .

I've got every sympathy for you Crankarm, I just think the current spate of potholes is different.

The one that got you in July should have been reported, and if it had grass growing I would have taken lots of photos and sued the council.

I think this current epidemic of potholes is different. People say it's because the roads weren't maintained perfectly before, but I don't remember many pothole complaints on this site in October.

Like everything - if you want perfection - eg roads which will never crack / instant access to world class healthcare etc you have to pay a massive tax hike.

The British taxpayer has never expressed that desire eg I'll pay extra council tax so roads are maintained perfectly and potholes won't appear when we have a one in 20 year cold snap.