A word of warning people on this one.

Don't even think of trying to claim against the council WHEN your car is damaged from some huge pothole. Labour has put pay to any claims you may have by using the following clause:

In the 1980 Highways Act authorities can argue that it was not necessary to settle claims if the authority could prove it took sufficient care of the roads!!!

WTF - basically a whole load of hassle for something that should not occur in the first place. You pay an extortianate amount of money to use the roads and they spend it in other areas, meaning we have third world roads.

I got caught in January 2009 in the SL causing one of my tyres to blow out immediately, wrote to council who siad they had taken necessary inspections in respect of the road, basically shove off. Went small claims track, got tossed from one court to another, county court got involved meaning more money from me required, county court threw it back to magistrates who in turn threw it back to small claims in Dec 2009.

Outcome - council know the process and hope you give up. Unless you are willing to stump up approx. £100 and allocate a half day of lost revenue, they know you will back down. In my case it would have cost me more to be off work and pay more fees (whatever that was for) and possibly lose the case due to the judge being a greenie or suchlike........the whole thing is just another way to extract money from you with the councils only losing less than 10% of the cases due to the clause.

Theres something wrong here isnt there? Barstewards, all of them. L322 Big Daddy SUPERCHARGED 5.0 Autobiography - Here & Now!

5 series for the miles

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Just watched PMQ's 's ...... obvious reason it isn't called PM Answers.....


's

I’ve no direct experience of this myself Will but.............
A friend of mine had a similar problem and used the Health and Safety angle.
She was successful after contacting H&S and presenting photo proof.
Aparently they contacted the local authority legal dept.

Damn, should have used that then Too late now  L322 Big Daddy SUPERCHARGED 5.0 Autobiography - Here & Now!

5 series for the miles

RRS S/C factory built HST - Gone

45 others have been and gone!

What I was told several years ago is that if you find road damage on the highway you should take a ohotograph BEFORE it becomes a pot hole and send it to the local council along with the location (where is it on this earth, not position on the road surface) and approx size and then send a letter to your council with a the details and photo and giving them the opportunity to repair it within a reasonable timespan dependant on the amount of traffic that uses the road and also telling the council that you will hold them liable for any damage to your car as a result of this pot hole.
It seems to have worked round here as many of my neighbours have deluged the council roads department with letters abiut the state of the road surface in the next hamlet along the main road - in one day there were 5 smashed windscreens from lumps thrown up from the broken surface and 2 cars with smashed alloys that I know of. Today the council have repaired about 200m of the worst sections of damaged surface.
I blame all these lorries carrying containers............................. some of which are 40+ tonnes and that our roads were never designed to carry. Send them all by sea and then I might have better employment opportunities 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
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2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
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But it kind of misses the point that we pay these barstewards to keep our roads in a satisfactory condition, not on par with a serengeti dust track or such like.

{We} as road users pay enough taxes and should therefore not be expected to carry out the councils job, i.e. monitoring road surfaces that we drive. Nor expected to gather evidence in such circumstances.

As for trying to prove that they were negligent if and probably more when your car or wheel etc gets damage is just not cricket, with the aforementioned RTA section 80 horse- , they effectively don't give a F k on the basis that 90% of people do not or will not win if they did, pursue the case in question.

Forget the extortionate fuel taxes, road fund license (now conveniently called vehicle license), VAT on fuel, repairs, purchase etc that props up the govt coffers..........at the end of the day they spend only 10% of that revenue on maintaning and creating roads throughout the UK, hence why we have such rubbish roads. The robbing hypocrites in govt will continue to rape us road users all the time we sit here and take it whilst telling us to drive 5 miles a week less..........what they don't tell you is that if you did, they would simply raise taxes elsewhere...........which is solely the reason I don't.....what good has it done me you ask...........NONE, as the simple fact remains the roads are atrocious and as above that is just not cricket  L322 Big Daddy SUPERCHARGED 5.0 Autobiography - Here & Now!

5 series for the miles

RRS S/C factory built HST - Gone

45 others have been and gone!

The Councils normally have insurance against such claims. When my wheel & tyre on my old Golf were destroyed by hitting a big pothole I contacted Aberdeen city council roads dept. They wouldn't even talk to me and told me to contact their insurers (Zurich at the time). I contacted them and they took the details. I sent them the invoices for the repairs (around £500). They responded with the answer that " The council have inspected the road and could find no evidence of the hole I claim to have hit & therefore they would not be paying out". I then responded with some lovely photos taken at the time of the incident along with some taken AFTER the date of their letter, proved by having the front page of that days local paper in the shot, and basically telling them that I didn't give a T SS how long it took to settle as I had employed the services of a No Win No Fee lawyer and they would be hearing from him in due course..... 1 week later I got a cheque in the post for the full amount claimed NEVER accept the 1st refusal to pay out .. The council or Insurer will ALWAYS refuse at 1st .... most people get the refusal and just give up ... the council/Insurer counts on this... It saves them a wad of cash ....Always have another go at them.. you've nothing to lose. 2013 Discovery HSE Luxury - 3.0 SDV6 - Santorini Black
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