Pothole Damage

SaBBz said:
Just been on the phone to Admiral. The claim is going to go against me and the car will be a write-off. If I want to chase the council I have to do it off my own back.

Looks like I'll have to start chasing then.
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Get plenty of photographs and witness statements if you can, especially about it being reported already. They are at fault if it has been reported. I claimed a few years ago and the council paid for the repair costs to my motorbike.

I imagine it looked like a puddle as you were driving towards it, a brown trouser moment i bet.
 
Buckster said:
those pointing the finger - have you not considered the pot-hole might have been full of water ?(speculating)

to the OP - that must have been rather scary when you hit that hole - ouch to the E46
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Exactly, dark, wet,NSL road- it's pretty obvious imo it would look like a puddle until he was on top of it.

Unlucky OP & poor e46
 
SaBBz said:
Just been on the phone to Admiral. The claim is going to go against me and the car will be a write-off. If I want to chase the council I have to do it off my own back.

Looks like I'll have to start chasing then.
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Provided there isnt significant suspension damage I'd be amazed if it was THAT expensive to fix it yourself. Depends on your attitude to buying airbags off Ebay I guess. Some people wouldnt dream of it, others think nothing of it. As a result they never fetch much money.

Your biggest PITA will be a new doorcard.
 
I drove through one when we had the bad flooding the other week and typically the front ditchfinders I'm trying to wear out stayed undamaged, but one of the few week old Continentals I'd fitted to the rear split down the sidewall. Luckily no rim damage due to 65 profile tyres!

It looked as big as this pothole too, but by the end of the day it had been filled in. Never thought about trying to claim or anything and guess its too late now!
 
[TW]Fox;23437916 said:
Provided there isnt significant suspension damage I'd be amazed if it was THAT expensive to fix it yourself. Depends on your attitude to buying airbags off Ebay I guess. Some people wouldnt dream of it, others think nothing of it. As a result they never fetch much money.

Your biggest PITA will be a new doorcard.
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another thing to consider is the airbag control module itself.

ive worked on VWs that showed an airbag light permanently on the dashboard. when the codes were read it listed a fault worded along the lines of "airbag deployed" which couldnt be cleared there and then and the dashboard continued to display the warning light
 
my word, well, maybe this could be a good time rebush and ball joint the car "just because" especially if it hasnt been done before
 
Wow, that is quite a sizeable chunk out of the road. :eek:

SaBBz said:
The road is between Cublington and Whitchurch, travelling towards Whitchurch. Both are villages in Buckinghamshire, just outside Aylesbury.
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Thanks for the heads up. I sometimes use that road on my commute and that cavern would destroy my little car.

Hopefully AVDC will sort out it all out quickly for you.

Gribs said:
I'm surprised by the sympathy on here as you were clearly traveling to quickly for the conditions to (not) miss something that large.
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There is always one. :rolleyes:
 
Matt82 said:
another thing to consider is the airbag control module itself.
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This is a very good point, unless you are certain that it doesn't need changing, I would do the ECU as well as the bags themselves.

Good luck getting it sorted & I'm glad nobody was hurt, that could have been very nasty.
 
Dogbreath said:
I knew there'd be someone spouting this kind of rubbish sooner or later :rolleyes:

It's an NSL road and in the dark; headlights simply don't pick out holes in the road like this until you are very close. Of course, if you had any significant amount of driving experience you'd know this.
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I've got over 15 years experience, most of it in the North where damaged roads seem to be fairly common and I've always managed to avoid them. Picking them out from a distance is a skill you need to have up here if you want to keep up a reasonable speed. Being slightly more cautious after the sort of weather that seems to damage the roads also makes sense.

My main problem is wanting someone else to blame rather than taking responsibility for your own actions.
 
Gribs said:
I've got over 15 years experience, most of it in the North where damaged roads seem to be fairly common and I've always managed to avoid them. Picking them out from a distance is a skill you need to have up here if you want to keep up a reasonable speed. Being slightly more cautious after the sort of weather that seems to damage the roads also makes sense.

My main problem is wanting someone else to blame rather than taking responsibility for your own actions.
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I think he has every right to blame someone else given the poor condition of the road. A pothole this size filled with water would be difficult to spot at a distance in the light, let alone in the dark.

Given the cost of road tax, I'd be chasing the council looking to be reimbursed in fll for the damage. Why should the OP be out of pocket due to a huge crater in the road which should not have been there and certainly wouldn't have grown to that size overnight.
 
Gribs said:
I've got over 15 years experience, most of it in the North where damaged roads seem to be fairly common and I've always managed to avoid them. Picking them out from a distance is a skill you need to have up here if you want to keep up a reasonable speed. Being slightly more cautious after the sort of weather that seems to damage the roads also makes sense.

My main problem is wanting someone else to blame rather than taking responsibility for your own actions.
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The standards in this country are for 60 MPH roads to not be full of enormous holes. A hole of that nature should have some kind of warning around it until it is fixed, which should be as soon as is practically possible.

It might be different in the north but I have never come across a 'pothole' like the one in the OP.
 
Gribs said:
I've got over 15 years experience, most of it in the North where damaged roads seem to be fairly common and I've always managed to avoid them. Picking them out from a distance is a skill you need to have up here if you want to keep up a reasonable speed. Being slightly more cautious after the sort of weather that seems to damage the roads also makes sense.

My main problem is wanting someone else to blame rather than taking responsibility for your own actions.
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As has already been said, he must have been taking it reasonably easy otherwise he'd have lost the wheels entirely!

I think it's entirely reasonable for him to blame the council. Given the price of road tax and that he pays it, it is not unfair to expect the roads to be in good condition. I think this case is particularly bad as the hole had already been reported, and not so much as a warning sign put in place.
 
Heinsight is wonderful...

How many of you on here however would have:

  • Been going 20mph on an NSL road at 7AM when it was clear
  • Been able to spot the pothole above 40MPH
  • Would have thought it was surface water and NOT a crater

Black tarmac, filled with dirty black water to the brim... no way the majority of us here would have made another judgement. I may have swerved slightly to avoid a "puddle" but that hole would come up so fast even at 40MPH to act without risking a skid on what looks like a very wet road.

He should definitely claim off the Council, it's inefficiencies like this that put things in perspective for them. Fixing the hole, may have cost a couple of grand, now they risk much more due to negligence. Why was it not cornered off with cones and lights if it had been reported previously.
 
Gribs said:
My main problem is wanting someone else to blame rather than taking responsibility for your own actions.
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Why should he be out of pocket because the council has failed to take appropriate action to maintain the roads they are responsible for?

If they don't know about it, then fine, but it had already been reported. As I said said earlier, the size and depth of this pothole means it could be potentially dangerous to someone in a smaller vehicle, thus the council should be acting immediately to ensure their term maintenance contractor either repairs the damage as soon as possible or at least dispatches someone to place warning signs/cones.

I also notice in the fourth picture that there's a lot of debris in the verge that looks like it could have been removed from the hole. The question could be asked, has someone already come along to remove the loose material in preparation for patching, failed to dispose of it and also failed to place any traffic management around a known dangerous obstruction?
 
Conscript said:
Most councils will have a term maintenance contract with a highway maintenance company who should be tasked to responding to such repairs as quickly as possible. Given that it's already been reported then yes, I would expect the council to be taking appropriate action through their contractor to ensure it's patched ASAP, especially when you consider the damage inflicted - the OP is lucky he was in a car, hitting a pothole of that size on a motorbike (or even a pedal bike) could prove fatal.
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Even if they can't fix it immediately, if something that bad is reported then they should at least put cones and/or signs out to warn people of the hole until such time as they can fix it.
 
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