Council paying for car damage?

[Murph7355]

Does anyone have experience of getting a council to pay for damage caused by a pothole?

Managed to buckle a wheel by hitting one. Pothole was on the road edge in the carriageway - car coming in the opposite direction prevented me avoiding it and was on top of it before I saw it fully. All within speed limits etc (the hole wasn't far from a junction).

AA recovered the car. I had the wheel looked at but unable to be repaired. New wheel and tyre over £1k.

Complete the claim form on the council site (Essex) after reading all their blurb. Response came back with a rejection but was unclear why. Asked for clarification and received the following:

"A claim for damages must prove that the highway was in such condition that it was dangerous and (their underlining) that the dangerous condition was created by the failure to maintain the highway.

The highways act provides that it is a defence to prove that it has taken reasonable steps to ensure the highway was not dangerous and has been maintained to a reasonable standard"

They go on to note that they routinely inspected the road twice this year before my incident and deemed it not dangerous. They've inspected it following my incident and decided the same. They've noted that they risk assess based on likeihoods etc.

My view is

1. They knew about the issue with the road
2. In their inspector's opinion it wasn't dangerous so they didn't repair it
3. That it was bad enough to buckle the wheel on my car, causing the tyre to immediately deflate, proves that the hole was dangerous and that their risk assessment was therefore flawed. Made more so by this being a country lane with ditches etc to one side and a narrow enough width not to give avoidance room. As they were plainly wrong on their risk assessment, I don't believe they did "take reasonable steps to ensure the highway was not dangerous". It clearly was.
4. They elected not to repair the carriageway. So they categorically did not "maintain it to a reasonable standard".

Any views?

There is no option to challenge their decision internally. The next step is to take them to court over it. As things stand I'm very prepared to do this - their assessments are evidently flawed which leaves significant risk for road users (and I'm significantly out of pocket!).

Has anyone won a damage claim like this? And is my reasoning flawed?

[Murph7355]

Jonno02 said:

Did you photograph the pothole at the time of damage?

Yes. Won't be winning photographer of the year with it, and had nothing to give scale unfortunately. It was about as deep as a Galaxy S5, so circa 6in.

[Murph7355]

TooMany2cvs said:

If you did the INSIDE of the rim on that, I'm more surprised you didn't take the wing off on the shrubbery... How far's that from where the white edge line should be? 100mm? What's your rim and tyre widths?

I don't give the first flying fkerigar if you were "inside the speed limit" - crap cop-out. That's an NSL back lane that clearly isn't wide enough for two cars to pass. If you and the other guy were both "inside the speed limit", that could have been a closing speed of 119mph... Any chance of a streetview link? No, thought not.

You don't inspect roads for Essex council do you?

Here you go Poirot.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.8857122,0.437998...

I'm not sure how far the edge of the hole is from the white line as I didn't measure it. Bearing in mind the front of the hole is 6in deep I think it's more than 10cm. I may go back and measure it. Tyres are 245 section. I can assure you that the wing of the car is perfectly in tact and unmarked...so wherever you may think the shrubbery is, it wasn't touched.

The road's wide enough for two cars to readily pass without issue in good repair (I've used it before). The car coming the other way was a BMW 1-series. It was on his side of the road.

The speed limit's 40mph moving to NSL about where the pothole is. It's not a massive distance from a junction where you have to stop, and not on a road where I go quickly for myriad reasons. "Inside the speed limit" isn't a "cop out". The road was being used as intended. Best not to judge people by your own standards

Hope you sleep better tonight and wake up in a better frame of mind...

[Murph7355]

TooMany2cvs said:

I'll sleep fine, ta. I'm not the one who fell off the road and is trying to blame somebody else.

I didn't fall off the road. That is the point. I fell into a pothole that is well into the carriageway and should not be IMO.

The council acknowledge that the road needs to be repaired. They have raised a ticket to do so, but noted it as "priority 3" so it must wait. A decision taken on a cost/risk assessment judgement. Had they fixed it, we wouldn't be having this conversation - something I think both of us would be much happier about

[Murph7355]

TooMany2cvs said:

Murph7355 said:

TooMany2cvs said:

I'll sleep fine, ta. I'm not the one who fell off the road and is trying to blame somebody else.

I didn't fall off the road. That is the point. I fell into a pothole that is well into the carriageway

If you'd done the outside of the rim, perhaps. You didn't. You did the inside.

Which is still in the carriageway, no?

As noted, I have no idea exactly how wide the hole is from white line to the edge of it. If I get chance I'll go and measure it. I do tend to avoid straying outside of white lines on these roads - wheels are expensive after all. Maybe I didn't on this occasion. Passing other cars, moving an inch over etc may have occurred...but the hole that the wheel hit was on the carriageway definitively (from the photo).

[Murph7355]

Yipper said:

Assuming it is a genuine claim, you need to follow 3 steps. This could take months:

Step 1 = fast claim by council website (looks like you've done this);
Step 2 = full claim and road-repair history-check by council and freedom-of-info request (your next step);
Step 3 = small claims court (your final and last step).

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/pothole-cl...

It's genuine. I'd very much rather not have been sat on the road side for 2hrs getting recovered home, not have tried to get the wheel repaired and defintiely not have paid Maserati for a new wheel and Pirelli for a tyre (I hate Pirelli tyres).

Thank you for the link. I'll read it tomorrow and progress.

[Murph7355]

Vaud said:

My take (having grown up in the countryside) is that there is a reasonable expectation that the edges of country roads are not "motorway quality" - they often are eroded.

Sorry OP - I would be taking a pragmatic view in this case.

Ultimately I expect I will have to.

I'm used to dealing with poor road surfaces around where I live. And until this episode accept it as part of the fun of living out in the countryside. If they are avoidable, I avoid them.

kiethton said:

Edit: - Had a check and couldn't see evidence of this being reported previously on a couple of the websites which will make it far harder to resolve unfortunately

They've been to look at it twice in the last year and on their site there have been reports of the condition. They simply assessed it as a low priority repair.

[Murph7355]

rampageturke said:

fwiw: the wheel doesn't have to be riding on the inside rim for the inside rim itself to buckle, a fair bit of force i expect is going to be there if the weight is dangling over the edge

Having experienced a buckled wheel now, and knowing categorically I wasn't in the bushes or more importantly the ditch not far from the left of the broken up white line, I agree.

I was also shocked at the level of damage, and that the tyre itself was visually undamaged. Maserati wheels evidently aren't the toughest.

But the road shouldn't IMO be left like that known about for over 6mths.

[Murph7355]

Nigel_O said:

Doesn't the purple paint suggest that somebody has "tagged" the pothole for repair? - This would suggest that somebody is aware of it AND they have decided it was a serious enough defect to warrant repair.

If this is the case, you may have a better chance of success

It's flagged as a P3 which I believe means it's not considered dangerous and will be fixed as and when they're doing something else on the road and/or time allows.