Collapsed manhole

27th January 2012

A few weeks ago I was driving home about 1:45am and suddenly an awful bang as if the car had hit a speed bump. I was doing 30mph as I was just coming up to a speed camera and of course am a legal driver ;) I didn't see anything in the road at the time an I couldn't stop immediately as it was a red route (in hindsight I probably could have given the time).

When I pulled over into a petrol station there was a massive crater in the front alloy and a smaller one in the rear. Also a rip at the same point in each tyre. There seemed to be no other damage (unless it was with the chassis, bodywork was fine). It was a hire car and the car was recovered. The next day i did some investigation and found out the road was closed in the area I had the incident due to a collapsed manhole. This is consistent with the damage to the car and the only logical explaination.

I have been hit with nearly £700 damage charge by the Car Hire company. They said that they wouldn't contact the council in this instance and I had to pay it. I called Camden council and they told me it was managed by TFL. I have a claim form and saved the web pages with the traffic report in the pothole as evidence. Their insurance company has sent me a claim form.

However, what are my chances of being reimbursed by them? Anyone ever had a successful claim?

Thanks,

Richard

Replies (1)

Potholes.co.uk Expert     posted : 27/01/12 at 11:39 am

Before you submit the claim form, have a read of our step by step guide and will hopefully appreciate that we recommend gathering information before a claim is submitted.