Farm Road

by Hardgate

31 Dec 2010

The area is not very brightly lit, and with cars parked on one side of the road, all traffic, including buses, use the same side of the road, and the pothole is directly in the wheeltracks. There is an extremely large, heavy piece of loose tarmac in the hole which has been dislodged and was sticking out of the hole when we hit it. We swerved to avoid it, but with not a lot of room to manouvre, the rear nearside wheel hit it and sent us snaking down the road, onto the opposite pavement and into a fence. The impact had burst the tyre, snapped the rear shock absorber in two, buckled the alloy wheel and possibly bent the rear axle. Car wasn't driveable and had to be uplifted on a wagon and delivered to the house. Another breakdown wagon is coming in the morning to take it to the garage, where hopefully it will be repaired. Due to the age of the car though (1998), we may be looking at having to buy a new car. Hope not. While we were taking photo's we tried to warn other drivers as they came down the hill, but obviously they couldn't see it and there were definitely other cars damaged as they went over it, as we could hear bits of plastic breaking and bouncing down the road, but nobody else stopped.
A burst water pipe further up the road which had been running down this part of the road for at least 10 days beforehand probably hasn't helped as the water was freezing, thawing and freezing constantly with the extremely low temperatures we have been experiencing.