Motorist driven round the bend by potty behaviour
A driver has been left gobsmacked by the recent reaction from his local council, after he filed an accident claim, due to his car being damaged by a pothole.
Motorist Ged Moore of Jarrow, South Tyneside, has branded South Tyneside Council as 'potty', when they blamed him for not reporting the pothole before the accident happened.
The group said it relied on residents to report defects in the road where they live. As a result, they rejected Ged’s claim for the cost of repairing the damage.
However, he stated that the council - which has a legal responsibility to maintain roads - should have spotted the pothole themselves.
He said: "I claimed for a repair on my car when it hit a pothole of five-inch depth in places. The front road spring was damaged and it had to be removed by Green Flag. The council carried out an emergency repair."
However, the council said it was not responsible for the £276 needed to replace Mr Moores's tyres and spring. He noted: "The main reason for rejecting the claim is as that the pothole was in the same street where I live. They say I should have reported it before the accident happened."
Mr Moore expressed his anger over the matter, when he said: "My contention is that this pothole was dangerous and should have been spotted at their inspections. The road had been inspected four and a half months before the accident. Potholes do not normally deteriorate badly over summer months, and certainly not to the depth of five inches."
To prove his point, Mr Moore claims that Google map displays the pothole and shows that it was five inches deep two months after the council's inspection.
A spokeswoman for South Tyneside Council insisted it was Mr Moore who was partially to blame. She said: "This road was last inspected in May 2008 and, as no defects were identified at that time, the pothole must have formed between May and October not all potholes appear in the winter months."
She also said: "The council has a robust highways inspection system in accordance with the national code of practice. As well as the inspection process, the council relies on members of the public to report faults in the highway as and when they occur. However, as neither Mr Moore nor any of his neighbours reported this pothole, we were not aware of it and could not have repaired it."
Mr Moore, concluded: "What I think of that can't be repeated. At the end of the day, it is the council's responsibility - not mine - to maintain the roads."
Pothole madness
Mr Moore is not the only one who is going potty over the pothole dilemma. It has been revealed that more than £2.5 million has been paid out in accident and compensation claims for Edinburgh's damaged roads and pavements in the last decade.
The problem is thought to be so bad that a claim is made every five minutes. A total of £250,000 was paid out for claims relating to the Capital's roads, whereas £2.3 million was handed out for personal injuries caused by unsafe paths.
Neil Grieg, a spokesman for the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said: "This highlights the unseen losses that poor maintenance brings. This is money that would have been better spent on upgrading the roads in the first place."
Updated on 08/06/2009