POTHOLES

We have probably already touched on this subject once or twice before, but last night I was potholed, good and proper.
I was going through a country area, the kind of village that has traffic calming, at each end of the village the road is brought down to a single lane and vehicles approaching have to giveway to traffic coming out.

I was just coming out after negotiating loads of badly maintained speed humps, it was dark as streetlighting was almost from the 1920s.
As I went through the single lane section I hit some thing HARD, must have been a big pothole, I heard two loud bangs as the front nearside, then rear nearside hit the hole.
I carried on for a while but after a few hundred yards it was obvious the car was pulling to the left, and then I could hear a whine from the read near side.
When I stopped both nearside tyres were totally flat.
I then spent an hour and a half waiting for the RAC to come and get me, they put the car on a truck and drove me 11 miles to my usual garage.

Today I spent £240 on two new tyres, luckily the wheels were not damaged.
Something I could do without.

When are they actually going to start spending the £450 a year road tax, plus all the fuel tax, that I pay David Cameron's rip off government on making the roads a safe place to drive.
I find it very strange that I cant work without safety boots, I cant drive without a seat belt, but I'm expected to drive on what must be the most potholed, and dangerous roads in Europe.
And all they do is blame the weather.

 

You should go back and take pictures of the pothole Pete and send it to your local council with a claim for the tyres.

During the winter months here our Government runs a scheme where we can ring in and report potholes, they are usually filled within a week.

 

Its the same around here, you have to learn rally driver skills, but even they don't help in the dark.

Funny isn't it. How much tax is on each litre of petrol, then road tax on top? 2.5 million out of work, yet the roads are falling apart. Ahh well, just so long as we know all that tax is going to pay the interest bill to the bankers that got us into this situation in the first place.

 

Funny you should say that Zigs! We've actually got a rally going on here this weekend tearing up our roads!

 

Good training for Somerset driving then We also got the peat, which shrinks & heaves all over the place making some of the roads like roller coasters.

 

About a year ago, on a dark country road, I hit a crater so hard that I actually temporarily totally lost control of the car. The car was thrown violently to the right and I ended up on the wrong side of the road. It was literally like we'd crashed, even as far as wife actually suffering some pain afterwards from the sheer violent force of the impact. The car suffered too, with some suspension damage.

Obviously all this is annoying and frustrating, but how long til it becomes more than that? What if a vehicle had been coming the other way at the exact moment my car was chucked onto the wrong side of the road? The government (past and present) have a lot to answer for. Knackered roads aren't just a costly nuisance, sooner or later a life will be lost purely because of diabolical road surface condition.

 

As an ex biker, my heart goes out to all bikers who have to ride for a living - not for jollies. What I am reading here ... doesn't bear thinking about,
Jenny

 

Due to ill health mine and Mrs ld I have traded the landrover discovery in for something smaller and easier to get in and out of,and my god its frightening also being an ex biker (still am at heart) there is no way I would want to be out there on 2 wheels.This little cmax is bad enough after the 4 wheel drive I really notice it what with the potholes and the standard of driving nowadays I will be glad when I dont have to drive a tall.

 

It's becoming a ballsache around here and I live in the pms' constituency!
I have one right outside my front window. Despite being 3 metres from the pothole and three metres from the pavement to the top of the window, it's plastered top to bottom when it rains.

Craters are appearing daily - if you want to know how bad it is ask your local taxi drivers. This will be the same every winter until we stop contracting repair work out to private contractors. Mine is a new hole, but the one five metres up the road is a hole that was repaired after last winter. It was simply filled without any sealant or real compacting being done. These contractors need to make a profit, so it stands to reason that a properly run council workforce could do the job for the same price to a higher standard.

Heaven help us when they do finally manage to contract out the NHS!

 

Good tip. I also ruined a wheel and a tyre hitting a pothole on the Edgeware Road (then drove the 90 miles home on the M1) but had no idea what had happened until I found the tyre flat the following day. I would have attempted to claim but would have had to drive back to London, find the pothole and dodge traffic while taking the photo.

 

I spent most of yesterday getting the car checked and the tyres replaced but managed to get out there again with a camera this morning.

I reported the hole yesterday afternoon, by phone, to the KCC and they told me no one else had reported that hole.
They did say they would send me a claim form.

This was the hole this morning.




They must have sneaked out yesterday afternoon and thrown some tarmac in the hole, this is despite a few days ago on local TV the bloke in charge of road maintenance for the KCC say all pot holes are now cut out and filled in the correct manner.

Until they maintain the roads properly we are going to get this problem every winter, roads which are resurfaced are unaffected by the weather, so weather is not an argument in my opinion, its just bad maintenance, which I lay firmly in the governments court, they collect the money but dont give local authorities enough of it to do the work correctly.
It doesn't matter who is in power, roads do not get a fair share of the budget.

 

Here is a thing for those around the country with the means of taking a photo and contacting these guys.

http://www.potholes.co.uk/

They helped contact the right people and filled 17 yes 17 holes that could have caused major trouble for vehicle owners.