Glasgow M74 Nightmare

by BMWag

17 Feb 2011

I was driving home from work on the 10 December 2010, when between Strathclyde Park and Motherwell cut off when I hit 2 potholes at round about 45mph, my tyre exploded and my alloy was smashed, also my track rod/end and steering rack were all damaged. As this was the week of the bad snow, the roads had been cleared but was still a lot of traffic going 45/50mph, when I hit the holes I lost control of car tho, lucky for me there were no cars close enough for me to hit. I managed to get into the hardshoulder where I called my insurance, who told me to call the police. It took 3 hours to get my car collected by recovery, and the police were alerted because I was sitting at the side of a busy motorway. Amey highways who have the contract to repair and the upkeep of the scottish roads were made aware by the police of the incident.

I had my car repaired at a Bodyshop in glasgow, and sent my repair bill and details of the report to Amey highways, in the detailed form that they sent me.

4 weeks later, I received a letter from AMey highways to say that they are in no way liable for the damage to my car, and that the specific location in where I had my incident was checked the "day before" and there were no defects so it must have been because of the amount of traffic on the road and weather conditions that made the potholes over night. However they said they received a telephone call on the day "after" my incident and the incident team attended and fixed the holes within 15 mins.. COMPLETE AND UTTER RUBBISH!!

I have been in the herald and the evening times regarding this incident, and unfortunatley the same thing happened in april of last year, this time with Glasgow City council, where again I had to go through my own insurance, as Glasgow city council refused to pay out, even though they knew about the hole and confirmed they filled it but because no one else complained about it, it was tough on my part.

Today my husband called Amey highways after there was a 2 page spread about the state of glasgows road in a National newspaper, to ask for the road inspection reports and to ask about all the information they have about the defect, and a pompous arrogant man, who I shall refrain to name (at the moment anyway) went on to tell my husband that what does he expect, its a motorway and very difficult to fully repair the holes as its far to busy especially as it was the middle lane of the motorway, and when my husband asked if he could quote him as saying that, he told my husband not to put words into his mouth!!!

I won't let this lie, I have spoken to transport scotland, the herald and the evening times, and contact the judge in the sunday mail. Something has to be done, the public should not have to keep forking out money, through no fault of their own. My first incident was £1700 which I had to put through my own insurance and the second most recent incident was £1000 which Ive paid myself, why should all our hard earned cash be spent when agencys like the council and amey have contracts to fix the roads and suchlike. The reason there is so many is because they just fill them instead of FIXING them, which really just makes them worse. The holes in the M74 are still there..they just keep filling them every week or so.

I will continue to fight, and hopefully get somewhere as I certainly don't want to spend my hard earned cash on repairs when they think they can get away with it by telling us that no one else reported it or, that there were no defects found the day before..its madness and infuriating.