A hole lotta…
Crumbling roads drive up dangers, damage and personal costs
Pothole problems are gathering pace as damage grows.
The RAC again registers a further increase in pothole callouts.
Meanwhile, others are calling on the government to give guidance on pothole avoidance.
Avoiding the issue
How can drivers navigate potholes ‘to avoid costly damage to their vehicles’?
A recent survey by Quotezone.co.uk showed that 90% of drivers had issues with potholes in their area, with 60% saying they or friends and family had suffered damage to their vehicles.
Drivers could be fined up to £2,500 if their attempts to avoid potholes are deemed to be driving without due care and attention.
Currently, there are no clear answers as to whether avoiding a pothole could be viewed as an exception to the rules.
With motorists forced to make dangerous manoeuvres to avoid potholes, experts are calling on authorities to clarify.
Quotezone.co.uk CEO Greg Wilson said: “With the cost of living crisis pushing insurance premiums up, costly damage to vehicles due to potholes is the last thing drivers need. We are calling for more information on how drivers should tackle problematic potholes in their area.”
Broken
Pothole-related breakdowns continue to rise rapidly despite the Government pledging more cash to tackle Britain’s crumbling roads.
So far, there has been little evidence of local authorities receiving sizeable budget increases to deal with epidemic-scale problems.
The RAC attended nearly 8,000 (7,904) breakdowns due to bad road surfaces in the first quarter of 2024, up 53% from the last three months of 2023.
Over the past year, pothole-related breakdowns are up by 10%, with the RAC attending 27,205 breakdowns, 2,299 more than the 24,906 incidents it attended the previous year.
Compared to 2006, when the RAC first began tracking these faults, drivers are now nearly twice as likely to experience pothole damage.
Could be worse?
RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: “While many would rightly say the roads are terrible, we believe they would have been far worse had we not had such a mild winter.
“We feel drivers have dodged the pothole bullet as the lack of widespread sub-zero temperatures has masked the true state of our roads.
“After all, all the cracks left by years of declining road maintenance budgets can’t easily be filled. Even though the Government has given councils an additional £8.3bn for road maintenance from the cancellation of the northern leg of HS2, we know this is only enough to resurface 5,000 miles of roads – the equivalent of just 3% of all England’s local roads.
“To make the most of this funding, we implore local authorities to focus their efforts on resurfacing the worst roads in their areas rather than pointlessly trying to patch pothole-ridden roads that can’t be saved from further decline.”
Crumbling realities
However, government data analysed by the RAC shows that 60% of English councils didn’t do any such work in the 2022-2023 financial year.
James Barwise, policy lead at the Road Haulage Association (RHA), said: “We welcome the Government’s recent announcements around the £8bn worth of funding to repair potholes. However, it is important that this funding is ringfenced and paired with other funding sources.
“If local authorities are provided with the tools to get on with the job, the cost of repairing potholes decreases considerably.”
“Perhaps it’s a case of temporary speed reductions in problematic areas or alternative route diversions to reduce the risk of incidents and stop roads from deteriorating further.
“This problem isn’t going away in the foreseeable future, so we need manageable solutions and practical information to protect all road users from harm and safeguard their finances.”
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Driving dangers
Quotezone says many drivers are being forced to slow down or stop sharply to avoid potholes, while others are having to drive around or swerve to prevent unnecessary damage.
These are potentially dangerous manoeuvres.
Add to this the fact that drivers are concentrating more on the tarmac than what’s happening around them.
Poor road surfaces are increasingly becoming a significant road safety issue, increasing the distraction of drivers and riders and stopping distances.
This has led the comparison website provider to call on the Government to issue guidance on the subject.
Greg Wilson, founder and CEO of Quotezone.co.uk, said: “Driving over potholes can cause damaged suspension components, bent steering parts, damaged shock absorbers, tyre damage and even broken wheels.”
If you then add the potential for points on your licence and fines, the costs, the situation becomes unworkable.
“This problem isn’t going away in the foreseeable future, so we need manageable solutions and practical information to protect all road users from harm and safeguard their finances.”