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Tips to help with claiming for damage caused by a pothole?
Suziboy
post Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 11:41
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Has anyone had success in claiming for damages caused by potholes? If so, have you any tips to share that could help improve chances of a claim being successful?

My son hit a pothole close to the crown of a local B-road coming home from work late Saturday night, bending a suspension wishbone which has rendered the car undriveable until it's replaced, and denting / scraping the front wheel that hit the hole.

Parts and labour for the suspension job (new arms, bushings, new mounting bolts etc) alone is around £300, and a new replacement wheel would be £350 (it's beyond a refurb job, and was unmarked before the incident).

On Sunday we went to the road and took pics. Looking on Fixmystreet, there is already a report of the specific pothole he hit (reported earlier the same day), and there is actually a repair ongoing to a large hole in the verge of the road (with barriers around the hole) about 40 yards from the actual hole my son hit.

To my mind, the existing ongoing repair indicates the council must know of the general state of the road, which I would hope strengthens our case.

I'd welcome any tips / experiences from anyone that's had success (or otherwise) in making claims. We have multiple pics of the pothole, of the damage to the car, and we're collecting receipts etc for the repairs.
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post Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 11:41
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Gerfc1
post Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 11:49
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Contact the Council in question, they will give you the form to fill in.
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Suziboy
post Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 12:03
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QUOTE (Gerfc1 @ Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 11:49) *
Contact the Council in question, they will give you the form to fill in.


Got that already, thanks - I was wondering more about the wording of the claim and (for example) highlighting the fact that a major road repair is being done on the same road very close to the pothole that did the damage.
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cp8759
post Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 12:25
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Make an EIR request asking the council when it was first notified / first found out about that particular pothole.


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The Rookie
post Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 13:32
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What matters isn't the pothole as such but whether the council were negligent, were they aware of it and took too long to fix it, or were they not aware but should have been.

If neither is true they don't have any liability generally. Obviously reported that day is no help to you at all in that respect.

We won our case but it was different in that negligent roadworks had left the road unsafe, the fact they 4 cars damaged wheels and tyres in quick succession was enough to suggest that the works had clearly left it in an unsafe condition, we also had photographs with a rule in the 'feature' to create a record of dimensions. Our claim was for a wheel and tyre and tracking and came to just over £1000.


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Suziboy
post Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 15:00
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QUOTE (The Rookie @ Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 13:32) *
What matters isn't the pothole as such but whether the council were negligent, were they aware of it and took too long to fix it, or were they not aware but should have been.

If neither is true they don't have any liability generally. Obviously reported that day is no help to you at all in that respect.

We won our case but it was different in that negligent roadworks had left the road unsafe, the fact they 4 cars damaged wheels and tyres in quick succession was enough to suggest that the works had clearly left it in an unsafe condition, we also had photographs with a rule in the 'feature' to create a record of dimensions. Our claim was for a wheel and tyre and tracking and came to just over £1000.


Thanks - I got similar pics, and as mentioned there is an existing repair to a major hole under way about 40 yards from the pothole which did the damage to my son's car, so I'm hopeful that will help our case in highlighting the general poor state of that short stretch of road.
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cp8759
post Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 15:50
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As I said make an information request under the environmental information regulations, as this will confirm exactly when they became aware of the issue. If they only found out on the same day, you can hardly blame them, but if they'd known for weeks, you have good grounds to argue they were negligent.


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Steve_999
post Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 23:51
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Our claim was settled (a couple of years ago) as we showed from the council's inspection logs that they had not inspected the road in accordance with their published policy. Well worth getting their inspection logs and any other data on reports of road defects.
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The Rookie
post Wed, 2 Dec 2020 - 08:13
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QUOTE (Suziboy @ Tue, 1 Dec 2020 - 15:00) *
there is an existing repair to a major hole under way about 40 yards from the pothole which did the damage to my son's car, so I'm hopeful that will help our case in highlighting the general poor state of that short stretch of road.

I'm not sure why you think that helps, someone reports that pothole, they turn up to repair it, even if its sensible that the spot they other one in question (i.e. if they don't spot it, is that necessarily negligent) it takes a finite amount of time to schedule and complete that repair without them being negligent.

So it's back to should they have been aware, did they inspect to their schedules (policy), should the last inspection have picked up on a potential issue (check Google street view, the last run may be new enough to show something perhaps), has it been reported and not fixed in a timely manner (consummate with the risk) and so on.

Many people complain about our roads but then never will in an online issue notice, so they are all effectively part of the problem. There are a number of online databases so check as many as you can, plus see what the council itself directs you to do on their website.


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There is no such thing as a law abiding motorist, just those who have been scammed and those yet to be scammed!

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