Approximately 100 South Brink, Wisbech

by whittlei

07 Jun 2010

The incident happened to my partner whilst visiting her mother in Wisbech. My partner was driving down the South Brink Road to reach her mother's house. As you can see from the photographs this is an unlit road and the section where the incident took place is particularly dark as there is a high flood defense wall on one side and the road is encroached by trees, also making the road narrower, on the other side.

The pothole is around a steel rain drain and is the perfect width for a tyre and wheel to fit into, which is what happened - resulting in a puncture and damaged alloy wheel rim. My partner felt the bump and within 100 yards the tyre was flat. On having the tyre examined at the local Kwik-fit there was a irreparable puncture to the sidewall.

As can be seen from the photographs, there was nothing wrong with her road positioning, as she was a good 18" from the kerb on a narrowed section of road. The depth of the pothole is just under 2" (photo 76) at the grid and nearly 3" at the tarmac side (photo 74).

My partner is 48 years old, and a good driver, having passed her IAM examination a few years ago. She has driven for some 20 years without incident, so is not the sort person to have been driving without due care. She was doing no more than 30 mph at the time, despite this section of road having a 40mph limit, which is ridiculous for such a section of road.

The tyres fitted to the car are 235/40 R18 and as such I will have to replace both front tyres as a pair. The damaged tyre has between 5/6mm of tread remaining, compared to a new tyre of the same specification having 8mm, so was approximately 50% worn at best.

I will be complaining to Cambs council and will update you with progress.