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Car damage due to pothole.


JDog
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Six weeks ago I was driving quietly along a B road when I had to head towards the verge as a van was taking up more than its share of the road.

I hit this pothole at 30mph or so causing the steering on my car to go out of alignment.

This was fixed and I wrote to Lincolnshire County Council with pictures asking them to reimburse the cost.They have refused to pay quoting a statutory defence provided by Section 58 of the Highways Act 1980.

Does anyone have experience in appealing against such decisions?20220112_130856.jpg.eb51c3e3b51a4d2dbc73d455cbb5de64.jpg

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Now that you have informed them that the road in (such) a state of repair that will cause damage to vehicles using it they have to repair it (or instruct a competent person to repair it) ... as you have satisfied the condition (2d) "whether the highway authority knew, or could reasonably have been expected to know, that the condition of the part of the highway to which the action relates was likely to cause danger to users of the highway;"

The next time it happens .....

 

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Hello, my son had a similar experience and needed a new tyre and redo steering alignment and Oxon OCC payed up in full, hope you are ok after this JD , there's a government web site to this and step by step claim guide on money saving expert web site, 

Edited by oldypigeonpopper
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This is what I do for a living (Highways Inspector). Section 58 means that the road will have an agreed inspection regime based on classification, ie A,B,C or unclassified. An A road will be monthly, B and C roads every three months and unclassified annually. To  successfully contest a section 58 defence you will need to demonstrate that the incident occurred recently, within a couple of weeks.AFTER of one of these inspections based on the idea that the inspectors failed to see it or request a repair. You can request the details of the inspection regime from the council to check these dates. Most claimants go for a no win no fee proposal and take a punt on the outcome as it only costs the insurance premium to cover costs if they lose. Demonstrable determination to take the matter to court can nudge a council towards payout, but not always. Having said that, we have a 97% success rate defending claims which, it has to be said are mostly not very honestly presented. PM me for any further information you may think of.

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Did it have yellow paint around it?    We have potholes here in West Leicestershire where the yellow paint is wearing off it has been there that long.  Must cost these councils thousands in paint alone.     I have helped many woman whos tyres and rims have been ruined change their wheels.  Still just bear in mind billions are being spent on a white elephant high speed rail link.

Hope you get succesful reimbursement.

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3 hours ago, 12gauge82 said:

It's part and parcel of life in general, suck it up and drive more carefully next time is my advice. 

That's a bit harsh why should anyone have to put up with damage done by pot holes motorists pay a fortune to be allowed to drive on the road the very least the road's should be reasonable to drive on.

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10 minutes ago, 12gauge82 said:

I'm a motorcyclist myself, you've got to accept potholes are a fact of life and be careful. If everyone sued everytime they hit a pothole, the public purse will be drained even quicker. 

Actually I expect if far more people claimed / complained then the councils would do more to fix the potholes.

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there is a difference between a "pot hole" and a total failure of the road surface and Type 1 MOT and even down to the sub-base.....most people accept pot holes as a nuisance.........but that hole is a total road failure

 

i wonder if that could be used as a different argument / point of view

"when does a pot hole become a hazard to human life"

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I think that most local authorities are a long way behind when it comes to road repairs . Things weren't great before covid came along , but covid made a bad situation even worse . It appears that local authorities are now going flat out to catch up , because just about everywhere I go , roads are being repaired . The local authority that I work for seems to have lots of two man crews( private contractors), running around all over the place doing small ( and very poor quality )repairs.

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Hello, don't forget it is not only local authorities that are subject to reinstating potholes, Gas/Water/Electric companies or their contractors have a duty to repair road or footpath excavations coupled with poor road repairs by the council own employees it's no wonder there are so many vehicles being damaged, lucky southern UK has not had a hard low temperature winter which is the main cause of potholes, As a side note I posted on a water leak that I reported week last Sunday, it took 5 days to check out, fixed on a Saturday with traffic at a standstill, repaired the leak about 12 ft away and left the damaged footpath area how it was instead of a complete resurface, 🤔

Edited by oldypigeonpopper
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