Pothole - council liability

thelawnet

Wife just suffered a double tyre blow-out due to a pothole.

Any idea if council are likely to pay-up?

(This is Surrey)

GwylimT

It normally depends as to whether or not the council were aware of the pothole and if so, how long have they known of its existence.

Mat_Lock

Check on https://www.potholes.co.uk if it's been reported or not

thelawnet

Went to have a look, pics here:

http://i.imgur.com/dtL5ZoA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TbRq5HQ.jpg

WTFH

Have you reported it to the council?

DUTR

thelawnet wrote: »

Went to have a look, pics here:

http://i.imgur.com/dtL5ZoA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TbRq5HQ.jpg

Thanks for getting the pics, to be fair looking at the position of the road decay , then I suspect the damage may have been done elsewhere as that vehicle is chanching it, being so close to what ordinarily would have been the kerb.
Also as the decay is not marked up with white paint, I suspect many passers who noticed it, couldn't be bothered to report the hole either.

Ultrasonic

Does the location of the pothole in relation to the white line marking the edge of the road make a difference to any potential claim? It looks like you'd probably need to be driving beyond the outer edge of the white line to damage a tyre?

thelawnet

DUTR wrote: »

Thanks for getting the pics, to be fair looking at the position of the road decay , then I suspect the damage may have been done elsewhere as that vehicle is chanching it, being so close to what ordinarily would have been the kerb.
Also as the decay is not marked up with white paint, I suspect many passers who noticed it, couldn't be bothered to report the hole either.

The road is quite narrow, so that vehicle position is quite normal.

It was somewhere around here:

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Goose+Rye+Road,+Worplesdon&hl=en&ll=51.27979,-0.604393&spn=0.003483,0.006539&sll=51.241515,-0.565423&sspn=0.111121,0.209255&oq=goose+rye+ro&hnear=Goose+Rye+Rd,+Worplesdon,+Guildford,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=18&layer=c&cbll=51.279842,-0.604273&panoid=6uR46243Z3WJOLD2xFk23w&cbp=12,34.38,,0,36.29

thelawnet

Ultrasonic wrote: »

Does the location of the pothole in relation to the white line marking the edge of the road make a difference to any potential claim? It looks like you'd probably need to be driving beyond the outer edge of the white line to damage a tyre?

I'm not really sure. The car has gone over the edge, obviously, however I think you would be ok driving ON the line, and as that is clearly missing, and the car slipped into the damaged edge, so I don't think there is anything necessarily wrong there.

Also it's common in places for the edge line to be inside the road, e.g., here:

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=brewery+road,+woking&ll=51.320287,-0.564825&spn=0.003467,0.006539&client=opera&oe=UTF-8&hnear=Brewery+Rd,+Woking,+Surrey,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=18&layer=c&cbll=51.320498,-0.564788&panoid=p2Y-2gFkq2mqzh8BIzN5jw&cbp=12,258.36,,0,11.59

You are not necessarily wrong to drive there.

DUTR

thelawnet wrote: »

The road is quite narrow, so that vehicle position is quite normal.

It was somewhere around here:

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Goose+Rye+Road,+Worplesdon&hl=en&ll=51.27979,-0.604393&spn=0.003483,0.006539&sll=51.241515,-0.565423&sspn=0.111121,0.209255&oq=goose+rye+ro&hnear=Goose+Rye+Rd,+Worplesdon,+Guildford,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=18&layer=c&cbll=51.279842,-0.604273&panoid=6uR46243Z3WJOLD2xFk23w&cbp=12,34.38,,0,36.29

Thanks for that, I'm not sure if you are aware, but that damage has been on that road since July 2012.

WTFH

Have you reported it to the council?