Pothole A899 (Livingston Road)

by jmd289

12 Dec 2010

During my trip home from work on the 12th of December 2010 I was unfortunate enough to hit a pothole on the A899 Livingston road. I was following another vehicle on the inside lane of the carriageway at 45mph and didn’t feel comfortable overtaking since the outside lane looked icy and was still much narrower due to earlier snowfall. The vehicle in front proceeded to merge into the left lane onto the slip road which leads to the town centre. As the vehicle moved off the road the pothole became visible. At this point however it was unavoidable as I now had someone overtaking me on the outside lane. If I had chosen to swerve this would have inevitably caused a serious accident. Impact was very loud due to the depth of the pothole and I knew immediately that the damage was significant. Unfortunately I could not stop to check the damage immediately due to the location of the pothole and the type of road that it was on. This would have put me and other road users at danger. On approach to ‘Lizzie Brice’s’ roundabout I could feel that the wheel was deflating quite quickly and it was more evident that the car was pulling to the right. Since my car didn’t hold a spare wheel I chose to continue my trip home to Murieston (1.5 miles away).