Chance of a Claim

12th March 2010

I hit a pot hole on the 18th of January and it was 7 feet long and 18" wide and about 10" deep.
I hit this early in the morning while dark and the result was one buckled alloy and a burst tyre, I found out a repair was done on the 14th&15th of January.
The council say I have no case, I would have thought that a reapir should last longer than a couple of days!!
I also know that 2 cars and one van also had wheels and tyres damaged at the same place within the hour.
I found a wheel on ebay £60 + tyre £120 as opposed to £350 for a wheel and tyre.
What is my chances as a road repair should last more than a couple of days and avoided this damage.

Regards

Bob.

Replies (2)

Potholes.co.uk Expert     posted : 12/03/10 at 3:01 pm

Sorry, I'll try again;

Ideally, this repair should have lasted longer than it did. However the recent extreme weather has caused many problems for road authorities, and the question you have to ask yourself is the same question that a Court will ask;

"did the authority act reasonably, given all the circumstances that existed at the time?"

They will argue that they could not undertake a proper repair as their resources were concentrated on snow clearance and gritting, hence they simply filled the pothole. Filling a pothole is only ever a temporary repair, and on a busy road in extreme cold/wet weather, the expected life of that repair is very short.

The burden of proof is on you to show that the local authority have been negligent. They attended to the pothole before your incident, but in the bad weather the repair did not last long, and they were not aware of it again until after you had hit it. Do you think they have been negligent? Should have repaired the pothole properly? Should they have monitored it's condition after the first repair?

My gut tells me that you might be hard pushed to 'prove' negligence.

Potholes.co.uk Expert     posted : 12/03/10 at 2:49 pm

Bob,

I have also seen the letter sent to you by the local authority, so I'm privvy to a bit more than you've said here.

Ideally,