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Pothole damage


daz2905

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Driving home tonight down a country lane on the way home i came across some temporary traffic lights that are adjacent to land being used for construction of new industrial units. They have been digging up the road for a couple of weeks and work mainly at night but no work was being done tonight.

I was half way down the coned off lane when i hit 2 potholes and blew out my front tyre, when i got out of the other end of the traffic lights there were 6 other cars with damaged tyres. Speaking to some of the other drivers i learnt that there had been many others that have blown tyres and it's all over facebook. I drove to a safer place and changed my tyre and drove back to find a further 3 cars with blown tyres.

I got the name of the council who have authorised the roadworks and also the contractor. I gave all the drivers my business card and asked them to contact me tomorrow to swap details and 2 other guys were going to take photos of the potholes.

I'm pretty sure someone has to pay for my tyre and tracking but do they have any kind of get out on this based on the recent extreme weather? I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than a hundred vehicles damaged and probably more getting damaged as i write this.

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It might of changed  now but in the late 80's I blew two tyres on one side of my car and these were expensive low profile tyres at the time. 

So I decided to look into it and as there was no internet it was a pain in the ass  but unless the council have repaired the pothole and it's gone bad again I couldn't get the council to pay. 

Like I said it may have changed now. 

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i managed to claim against the council for damage to my alloys and tyres

took me almost a year  to the day to get the cheque, they tried everything to get out of paying up but i had reports from other people who had reported it to them online (ref numbers), the police had reported it and proof that thet allready knew about the pothole which they clearly refused to repair

best of it...due to the location, it was dangerous to take pictures of it at night so went there the next day after i hit it (before rush hour traffic)....and they repaired it at 6am in the morning!!

depending on the price of your tyres, it might not be worth the long hassle through the claim process

good luck if you go to claim

Edited by dibberly
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I spoke to the county councils highway department that night. He told me to get an insurance claim form from the council on Monday and said he'd had loads of calls.

Looked on the AA website and they said if it's more than the depth of 2 pound coins stacked and the size of a dinner plate then you can claim.

This is one of the 2 potholes that we hit, one of the other drivers emailed it to me.

http://2d1lm9t.jpg

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being able to claim and them actually paying up is worlds apart

it is possible dont get me wrong but dont expect to send of the claim form and a cheque a few weeks later

you send your form to the council, they will pass it onto their insurance company who will fight the case for you, then if you succeed, they will pass that onto a "loss adjuster" to hammer you down even more and they have the final say (well, in my case that was the process)

eg if you have used 50% of the tyre, they will say you are entitled to only 50% of a new tyre or if it is close to the limit they will probably say you have had your life out the tyre

what ever you do, once you get the new tyre(s), keep the receipt and also keep the old tyre as they might wanna inspect it

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Cheers mate, the tyres are only a month old so i'll keep the old and i think i still have the reciept if not i'll get a copy. Bastards should give me something for having to change the tyre in freezing conditions but i'll just settle for tyre and tracking refund. I'm not fussed how long it takes, so long as they pay what it costs. Like i said in first post though, these are contractors for a private development so i would imagine that they will be the ones that ultimately pick up the bill. I drive down the road twice every day and there was no pothole before and it looks like it's been damaged and even swept clean of debris. I hope it's the contractors that pay, otherwise i'm just paying my council tax to get my own money paid back to me while a private business pays nothing.  

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