Potholes and accidents

[mikal83]

T'other day I was tootling along in my car when I saw a 1ft wide and at least 3 inches deep hole right on where I would have taken the slight corner...IF I was on my bike.
IF it threw me off sustaining a lot of damage to not only me, but the bike. Where do you stand?
Has it happened to any other bikers here or that you know of.....what was the outcome

[998420]

Aged 16, a pothole blew out my rear tyre and cracked the rim on my ped, I found out that it was a Thames Water issue, wrote to them, no solicitors, and got my damages paid in full and in time.

[SAS Tom]

You stand at the side of the road with a broken bike.

[Prof Prolapse]

Around Edinburgh it's horrendous, but to be fair it normally is until ~Spring. They patch things up, and the cheap repairs fail during winter.

If you're lucky enough not to be injured, you take a picture of the pothole, damage, report it immediately to the council (or I guess who's responsible if it isn't them) and follow the process, which I believe is just a matter of sending them a bill, but only going off what friends have said, it wasn't actually too difficult to resolve. Presumably because It's fairly routine here, and it's still cheaper than fixing the roads properly apparently.

If you're injured, then I'd be seeking an ambulance chaser for additional reparations (more so they'd get their act together quite frankly).

[sjtscott]

First thing you do if you're concerned OP is get the thing reported!
London is fully of terrible road surfaces and potholes. You ensure you have standard heavy wheels for one If you know you're gonna have to hit one prepare yourself basically
I seem to remember if the pothole has been reported and the local council haven't fixed it and subsequently someone has an accident.. thats when you might start to get somewhere.
If they haven't been told about it I think you'd struggle to prove responsibility. For roads I ride on regularly you generally learn where to avoid and on some its a real slalom to avoid everything it becomes 2nd nature after a while.

[NickCW]

Council's have changed their policies from a few years back so they will only pay out if they are proven to be negligent, this constitutes them knowing about a pothole and not fixing it within a certain time period (usually 28days).

What this means however is if their road inspector is incompetent as the job (oh the irony) and therefore doesn't spot/report potholes, they have a get out of jail free card..

It's so bad around me (3 blowouts and after 6 months of arguing with their solicitors - nothing) we have just taken to reporting every pothole we see so they have to fix them.

[warch]

I found a bike rather handy for weaving through the mass of potholes where I live. That said I've knackered two sets of fork seals and nearly broken my teeth, dropping into one's I'd forgotten about.

They're particularly inconvenient on T junctions in my experience,

[Prof Prolapse]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

They do it in the Scottish borders now. I don't believe it's anything official, but it certainly coincides with sections just near to accident blackspots.

As for the rest of the roads, some are now so bad you really struggle on a sportsbike.

[rat840771]

Awful in Cambridgeshire, they just dress a turd by masking over with fine gravel.

Potholes everywhere.

There was a manhole missing on the A10 last week ( in rush hour) loads of cars pulled over with blowouts and god help anyone on a motorbike!

[nervous]

We hit one 80cms wide, 140cms long and 55cms deep this week that broke an alloy, trashed a tyre, and wrecked the suspension and bodywork. I’m about £1500 deep into repairs now, and that’s before considering paint and body.

The council knew about the hole (upon closer inspection they had drawn a line around it, most of which had fallen in to the hole and all of it entirely invisible in the dark, and it is also logged as being reported on the 18th) but they claim they’re not liable, despite not fixing it in time to stop accidents occurring.

Their position is they’re not liable if they don’t know about the hole, but also they’re not liable if they know about the hole. Nice work, eh?

I called them at 525 pm to tell them we’d had an accident, and when I went back at 7am the next morning to take better pictures it’d been filled already. Interesting, no?

[scarble]

How fking big??
55cm? Are you sure you don't mean mm?
How can they not fix that the second it's reported?

[warch]

I'd want custard proof for a half metre deep pothole, unless it's a partially collapsed road edge or drain chambers sans cover.

[nervous]

No, I mean 55cms. It was just round the corner from my house so I went and got my tape measure whilst we waited to be recovered by a low loader.

[nervous]

warch said:

I'd want custard proof for a half metre deep pothole, unless it's a partially collapsed road edge or drain chambers sans cover.

I’m afraid I don’t know what custard proof is, sorry.

But I measured it, so I know that’s what it is, regardless of pudding unguents.

[nervous]

scarble said:

How fking Big?
How can they not fix that the second it's reported?

This is my point. And yet.

At a guess, and to be charitable to people who are not being so to me, I’m guessing it degraded and/ or was degrading moreso every time it was hit, which was every time a car passed basically as it was essentially unavoidable and why it was reported so many times on that day also.

[HTP99]

Last year in the area of the UK where I work, a cyclist hit a pothole, was thrown off his bike and died, I don't know if the council were found to be liable.

[nervous]

HTP99 said:

Last year in the area of the UK where I work, a cyclist hit a pothole, was thrown off his bike and died, I don't know if the council were found to be liable.

In any event, I’ll bet they made it worse for the family with their wriggling.

[Gavia]

mikal83 said:

T'other day I was tootling along in my car when I saw a 1ft wide and at least 3 inches deep hole right on where I would have taken the slight corner...IF I was on my bike.
IF it threw me off sustaining a lot of damage to not only me, but the bike. Where do you stand?
Has it happened to any other bikers here or that you know of.....what was the outcome

That sounds like a great road with a superb surface round here. I’ve just spent 30 mins logging yet more mental potholes around here.

If you fall off then it’ll be down to your insurers to argue the toss on the damage, as they’ll be paying for the repairs and a solicitor acting for you on any injury. I think a competent rider should be able to cope with one pothole, a cluster of them is a separate discussion though amd that’s where it gets lethal, as an unsettled bike hitting another pothole is a recipe for disaster.

The council’s liability depends on whether they were aware of the pothole, if so how did they categorise it? The y have 3 grades from requiring immediate rectification to within 28 days. The clock starts ticking once someone has looked at it although, what tends to happen is they send the repair crew to look at the and assess. If urgent they repair it there and then.

Please make sure you report any potholes on fixmystreet.com so that it removes any claim of not being aware of the potholes.

[cptsideways]

I can see a avenue for a pothole reporting app, independent of councils but where they get the report emailed to them so they cannot argue the toss later.

Just an add on to waze would be handy

[Gavia]

cptsideways said:

I can see a avenue for a pothole reporting app, independent of councils but where they get the report emailed to them so they cannot argue the toss later.

Just an add on to waze would be handy

You mean like fixmystreet.com that I’ve mentioned above. It doesn’t need to be an app, just as functional website, exactly like fixmystreet.com

Have I mentioned fixmystreet.com yet?