In the week that National Pothole Day fell and a survey found that breakdown claims likely to be related to the cursed craters has increased, a single pothole in Surrey was the cause of at least 12 vehicles experiencing burst tyres and damaged wheels in just one evening.
National Pothole Day falls on 15 January each year. Against the backdrop of cuts in the government's contribution to councils' roads maintenance budgets and soaring repair and materials costs, as reported recently by Autocar, the event has rapidly acquired greater significance as each year the number of motorists who claim their cars have been damaged by potholes increases.
The pothole that was the cause of at least 12 cars suffering wheel and tyre damage in the early evening of 17 January is located at the side of the B380, a busy country road between Woking and Guildford.
The unfortunate drivers managed to limp a further mile to the sanctuary of the Fox Inn, where they gathered to change their tyres or await rescue.
Nigel Mart, the pub's owner, said one driver had arrived with two punctures and a damaged wheel. "One evening at the end of last month, four drivers arrived with broken wheels but this is the largest number of damaged cars we've seen," he said. "I expect we'll see many more."
If he's correct, they may not be victims of the same pothole. Two days after the incident, Autocar inspected it, only to find that, fortunately, it had been repaired by the council.
The latest figures from the RAC show that between last October and the end of December, its staff attended an average of 20 vehicle breakdowns per day for pothole-related damage, the highest number recorded for the fourth quarter of the year since 2019 and an increase of 23% on the previous three months.
The organisation says the current wintry weather is hastening the development of potholes and predicts that come spring, the roads will be in a much worse condition.
Nicholas Lyes, RAC head of roads policy, said: "With drivers rating the ongoing poor state of the roads as one of their biggest motoring frustrations, they can only hope that 2023 is the year when the government comes up with a better way to solve the problem.”
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The clockwise carriageway between J9-10 on the M60 have dangerously deep potholes and have done so for at least the last year.
Have you see a repair crew out filling in potholes recently?,no? , me neither, Councls don't have the Cash hence the the half arsed repairs they can do which means there spending twice the money they haven't really got.
"With drivers rating the ongoing poor state of the roads as one of their biggest motoring frustrations, they can only hope that 2023 is the year when the government comes up with a better way to solve the problem"
BWWWAAAHHhahahahahahahahaha! Oh, my, it's great to come here to get a daily dose of comedy. No. They won't. They really won't. Not least because it's an ovwerwhelmingly decentralised problem to solve and councils have had £13 billion, per year, stripped out of budgets, so it's not going to be a priority for many a year to come. Maybe they will get lucky with a share of the palty £2 billion levellin...oh, never mind.
If only there was a fund, un burdened by the whims of politicians, and un battered by the tides of economic fortune, that could in some way be tapped to find the budget spend to work on national and regional issues like these, I'm sure the UK would whole heatedly embrace...oh, never mind, we walked away from that.
And even, as if by magic, the government manage to stumble across someone among their ranks, with any level of competency or talent for problem sdolving, they will immediuately be treated as an oddity and cast aside.
As an aside, but related to competency, The Guardian has an excellent article about the inevitable failure that was Britishvolt, which is well researched and written, and you don't need to pay £20 quid per month to read.