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On in four drivers have had their car damaged by a speedhump or pothole, according to new research by Insurethegap.com.
In urban areas the damage rate was even higher, with one in three of those surveyed stating that their car had suffered damage.
Ben Wooltorton, COO at InsuretheGap.com, said, “Damage to cars caused by speedhumps and potholes, in particular, is becoming a big problem as councils struggle with the cost of repairing them. This cold snap will see more potholes and, as we can see from the research, repairs can run into hundreds of pounds. It really is worth avoiding them if possible, and going a different way if the road is particularly bad.”
More than a quarter (26%) said the average cost of repairing the damage ranged from £51 to £100. A third (35%) paid between £101 and £250 to rectify damage and 8% said it cost more than £250.
Two fifths (39%) of affected drivers complained to the council about the potholes or speedhumps and more than half of them (55%) said their compliant was ignored, but 39% said action was taken as a result. One in ten (10%) went so far as to send their bill to the council.
A fifth (21%) said they had considered complaining “but didn’t see the point as nothing would change”, and 12% complained to Highways England/Transport Scotland/Traffic Wales or the Northern Ireland Department for Infrastructure.
Instead of complaining, one in six (17%) now take a longer route to avoid potholes.
In 2017 – 2019, more than 905,000 potholes were reported on UK roads according to Confused.com.
The Transport Select Committee’s latest report, Local roads funding and maintenance: filling the gap, addresses ‘the extreme state of disrepair of the English local road network’. It identifies a drop in local government revenue funding of around 25% since 2010, resulting in funds for local roads no longer being ring-fenced. As a result ‘cash-strapped authorities have diverted their highways and transport budgets to fund core services’.
The findings state that a deteriorating local road network undermines local economic performance, results in direct costs to taxpayers, damages vehicles and causes injuries to passengers, ‘particularly those with existing medical conditions’.
The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.
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“On in four drivers have had their car damaged by a speedhump or potholes” No kidding. I honestly feared I’d cracked the front off-side wheel rim driving through an ‘invisible’ pot hole on Wednesday. Single track road somewhere between Ewhurst and Stroud Common with a ten foot stretch of flood water crossing a dip, hiding a damp great pot hole!
I was shaking after – if my car had been kaput I’d have had to either dial 999 or wait who knows how long for someone else to come along and help, because there was no mobile ‘phone service and I can’t exactly trot off down the road to find a house and ask to use their land line.
Same here yesterday evening coming home from a hospital appointment in leeds for a stress test on my heart, I nearly had another sodding heart attack as I went through a large puddle on the left side of the road, I hit a hidden pothole that literally bounced the car up onto the 2 right hand tyres, I was close to landing back down on the actual pavement, I did expect a smashed rim and bust tyre but it seems to have survived somehow.
Nice to know what the road fund licence gets spent on, certainly not the roads!
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