Reporting a road fault

[ColinJ]

It's over a decade ago now, but I got a hole filled in days by telling the council that somebody was going to get killed or injured hitting it...

I said that I was officially notifying them about it and reminding them that they had a responsibility to make it safe. Oh, and PS - I had copied the email to a firm of solicitors specialising in cycling accident claims, and I would scour the local press for news of an inevitable accident. When I found out about that I would contact the police and the media and be a witness to the council's negligence.

I soon got a reply email from the council. Tellingly - they had forgotten to delete the messages from within the various council departments so I could see exactly what the reactions were as my message was forwarded from one person to another up the food chain! It went something like this: "Fred - here's another bloody pothole complaint" to "John - get someone to have a look at this when you can" to "Pete - this pothole sounds like a bad one and the guy has sent a copy to a third party so we will be up s**t creek if someone gets hurt now" to "Mick - go and fix this pothole - NOW!!!"

Within 24 hours I had an email from 'Mick'. He gave me an OS grid reference for the pothole and forwarded a photograph of his repair. He asked me to confirm that this was the one that I'd reported. Result! The repair job was done properly. I've checked it a couple of times, and it is still sound, unlike a lot of botched repairs that fail again once a few HGVs have driven over them.

 

[Drago]

Im in Denmark.

I reported a pothole on a country road close to my house to my local council. 2 days later there was a big yellow ring painted round the pot hole. But every other blemish on the road for 2.5km, also had rings round them. By the end of the week, they had all been repaired. 😁👍

See, round here a chap comes out, paints a ring around the pothole(s) and heads on his merry way. Nothing happens for so long that the paint either wears away, or the hole expands and swallows the paint. Eventually, at some indeterminate time in the future, the hole is repaired.

This being the case, why faff about painting rings aroud them? If the highways departments are so short of cash then why are they spending money on salaries for people painting useless rings around potholes? Surely that's money that would be better spent carrying out pothole repairs?

 

[I like Skol]

See, round here a chap comes out, paints a ring around the pothole(s) and heads on his merry way. Nothing happens for so long that the paint either wears away, or the hole expands and swallows the paint. Eventually, at some indeterminate time in the future, the hole is repaired.

This being the case, why faff about painting rings aroud them? If the highways departments are so short of cash then why are they spending money on salaries for people painting useless rings around potholes? Surely that's money that would be better spent carrying out pothole repairs?

It'll be a liability thing. When the injury/damage claim arrives they can fend it off by showing they have done due diligence by inspecting the roads and recording that the fault was within 'allowed' limits but noted for future repair.....

 

[Drago]

Indeed, they tried that on with me many years ago when I claimed for an alloy wheel, but it doesn't work if you're determined. Applying paint to a pothole demonstrates their awareness of it - having done so, then allowing the paint to wear off and/or the pothole to grow in size so that it swallows the paint demonstrates a lack of genuine intention to effect a repair within a meaningful time period that would prevent damage or injury. The paint served only to indicate how long the carncil had known about it and still declined to act.

I got my 300 sovs after responding to that effect.

 

[Globalti]

I've been complaining to Lancashire CC, to the Parish Clerk and to the MP who lives in the village about the state of a 100 yard stretch of the road entering Pendleton from the east, which is all broken up. LCC have replied that since nothing is deeper than 40 mm they don't consider it needs repair even though it's on a national cycle route. Yet weirdly, up on Whalley Nab a mile or two away a one-mile stretch of York Lane has been visited by somebody who has sprayed white paint sound even the small areas where the tarmac is beginning to break up but has not yet developed into a pothole. I must get comparative photos of the two areas and send them to LCC.

 

[Milkfloat]

It took me over 18 months to get a water leak fixed that was freezing and creating a skating rink for two winters. More than 20 people had complained repeatedly whilst the water company and council played tennis with the problem. I know of at least 3 cyclists that broke bones during this period on the ice. Conversely, within a day of reporting two potholes (one on a roundabout and one on a blind bend) in town they were both repaired, same for a broken street light down an alleyway. I think that by explaining the consequences and how dangerous the problem is that you can get a better reaction.

 

[Sham69]

Thanks to all for the plethora of brilliant suggestions, useful information and great anecdotes. I feel better armed now.

The local council is Dartford. Dartford council are responsible for some types of road upkeep but the party responsible for repair of this type of road fault is Kent County Council. It's website...

https://www.kent.gov.uk/roads-and-travel/report-a-problem

...has the facility to report online road faults. However, the website states that dangerous faults should be reported by telephone. So, on 27th Sept 2019 I telephoned KCC with this particular road fault, using all the provocative words I could muster. Nothing happened, except the little yellow hazard sign that is supposed to denote a road fault never appeared on the road fault map at location DA2 7HE. A subsequent 'phone call to KCC suggested that the fault had been placed in the wrong location (I spent an age describing its exact position - give me strength!). This was corrected and a warning triangle appeared, whoopy!

A few days later, the yellow warning triangle disappeared. This time, I decided to take a different approach. On 18th October 2019 I registered the fault online and placed it directly onto the KCC road fault map. A yellow warning triangle stayed there for a while then disappeared again so on 5th November 2019 I added the fault again then telephoned to check my understanding of KCC's online reporting system. The person I spoke with tried to be helpful but I got the impression that they didn't really understand the system so couldn't explain it to my satisfaction. They did beg me not to report the same fault again though and informed me that the repair request had been notified to contractors. My latest fault report has the ref: 453793 and doesn't appear on the fault map!?! If it had appeared on the map, anyone could click on the yellow triangle icon and add their details too - nice and simple. Absence of the warning triangle icon means that a new fault report would need to be raised instead.

In case anyone's interested, the exact position is as follows:
DA2 7HE
On the road - outside number 2 Birchwood Road - about 30 to 50cm from the kerb
Very, very close to the junction of Birchwood Road and Tile Kiln Lane

If you cycle that road, please take care as it's busy and not always easy for a cyclist to move out into center of lane to avoid the potholed area where the metal rising bollards are exposed and stick proud of the immediate, rutted & grooved, road surface.

You can see from Google Earth, street view (May 2019), that there is a cluster of four small metal access covers ('rising bollards', I'm told) and the surface around them was starting to break up even then. There's also a water leak which has worsened over the summer so the potholes are always disguised by a covering of water. This means that the water authority, Thames Water, is also involved - an added complication no doubt. (I've reported the water leak on Thames Water's website).

This patch has been repaired many times in the past. Usually, the repair lasts a handful of years before the surface starts to break up again, as it has so often before. In the past, KCC effected repair before it got too bad. Cost cutting now, I guess, which may prove a false economy if a claim is submitted for injury - or worse.

I should add that I've cycled most of my life and only ever reported three road faults, because I considered them to be a danger to a cyclist's life.

 

[vickster]

I’d get tweeting

 

[furball]

Different authorities have different priorities when dealing with road repairs
depending on how deep the financial pothole the authority is in.