Pot Holes M25, Junction 29, Anti Clockwise

by deanoo

05 Jul 2010

At the end of January this year I was traveling around the M25 towards the A1 from Dartford in the early hour of the morning. When I hit a large part of damaged road. My first indication was a large gun shot noise as something hit my wind screen, causing cracks right across the screen, at the same time I hit the damaged area. This caused the car to vibrate and shudder a great deal.
Because of this and to inspect for any damage I pulled over to the hard shoulder, to find the front tyre going down, wind screen and front light damaged. I used the spare tyre to repair the damage, but as I was doing this i found the rear tyre on the same side going down as well.
As I only had one spare I had no way out of this and had to get the car recovered.
I reported this to Connect Plus who I am told manage this section of the M25 and made a request under the freedom of information act for information on the said section of which I will add has still not been sent to me in full.
Soon after this I noticed the car not to be running correctly and had to have it inspected.
The front Brack caliper was found to have sheered a bolt, suspension arm and exahaust damaged.
It is now some 6 months later and Connect plus have rejected my claim, on a few points but mainly they rely on the fact that I have called it a Pot Hole and Pot Holes do not exist unless they are 40 mm deep. That area of road only has a covering of 36 mm so in there eyes a pot hole can not exit.
About a week after this incident I drove along the same section of road, This time I placed a camera on the dash of my vehicle and recorded what happened as you drove over this section of road, and the mayhem as vehicles tried to avoid it.
Over the coming weeks it was repaired on a number of times untill finally the whole road section was relaid.
Where do I stand and what do I need to do next.
Thanks
Dean Reynolds