Driving down a road last night well under the speedlimit for the road and hit a small but deep pothole buckling my wheel so much that it touched the break caliper

Has anyone ever successfully claimed from the local highways agency for this and if so how did you go about it etc?

Thanks in advance

Andy

 

I suppose a visit to the local council highways dept would be a good start. But I would take a photo (non digital) first of the pothole and the damage. Make sure you have all the evidence before they fill it in in a hurry.

Les

 

Nope, I hit a BIGGIE - thought I was gonna have to claim for new teeth aswell as body damage. But there's a by-law they can hide behind, yes they have a care of duty to maintain the roads, but they can't be expected to ensure they are perfect all the time.

Bastids.

 

Did the same myself ages ago, took pictures, got my tracking re-done, got the wheel fixed and sent the bill to the council.
Heard nothing for months, just that they were handing the claim to thier solictors.
Then out of the blue, got a cheque that covered the tracking and wheel fixing through the post, result
And then they fixed the hole
Go to your local council website, find the highways agency part, email them details of whats happened. They send you a form, fill it in, include any pics you have ( digital ones worked fine for me with stockport council ) dont forget to get your tracking done as well as the cost of the wheel and tyre! Wait months for them to process the claim, hopefully receive a cheque to cover your cost
chris.

 

With ours they passed it on to their insurers along with loads of work reports and public notifications of road damage. The insurers say that as the pothole we hit had been reported some 9 days prior to us hitting it, and repaired 4 days after, that their client had fulfilled their responsibilites. I said b0ll0x to that and am in the process of taking them to Small Claims. Even if I lose it will cost me IRO £60. How much will it cost a multinational insurance company to formulate their defense, liase with their client, attend and finalise a visit to court. I think it would be cheaper for them to pay up, but they may want to prove a point at their expense, and a little of mine. We'll see

 

Back in about 2001, I hit a pothole in my GTI-R which buckled the wheel, damaged the tyre, threw off the tracking, split the wheel bearing and damaged several bushes on my Cusco chassis brace.

Around £700 total damage caused including labour to repair damage.

I sent a nice letter along with loads of photos of the damage and the pothole (alongside a ruler for scale). Because the council had begun to repair the road very close to where the pothole was, they clearly KNEW that the road was in a poor state so they didn't have much of a defence.

I got the work done and presented them with a receipt. They paid in full within a week minus £25 for wear and tear to the tyre (they had to have a bit of a victory I suppose!).

Not too bad in my opinion - especially considering that it was Cotswold District Council who seem to be too stingy to use white paint to mark the roads and junctions round here!

 

You think councils can be stingy, you've heard nothing!

Workmate of mine was involved in an accident on his way into work. He comes through a series of country roads on his way in and several criss-cross each other. At one crossroads he and an escort van both went and collided in the middle. Anyway he comes into work and says that they'd both stood there scratching their heads because the road markings had worn away and neither knew who was in the right so they'd decided to lay it at the council's feet. He called the council from work (it's about 9am now) and suggested the accident was actually their fault as they are responsible for making sure the roads are safely marked. They told him to get pics of the road junction for evidence as they could admit no liability without seeing them so he duly borrowed the works' camera and prepared to stop off on the way home and take some pics.

He phoned me up from home that night..

They'd been out during the day and painted the markings in!

Unfortunately I moved up north not long after that but as far as I'm aware the battle is still ongoing!

 

I dropped into this monster:

http://homepage.mac.com/the061/PhotoAlbum2.html

Took the pictures (digital) to the council, they sent a claim form and within a month they had coughed up.

Good job they did too otherwise it would have been in the paper.