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MSE News: Pothole breakdowns jump more than 10%

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in Motoring
The number of vehicles breaking down after hitting a pothole has jumped dramatically, according to the RAC...
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'Pothole breakdowns jump more than 10%'

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'Pothole breakdowns jump more than 10%'

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Fake News - there has been an 11% increase in breakdowns due to potholes.
How the fact morphed into being totally due to potholes is amazing. Road based reasons include potholes but also poorly designed speed bumps. Reasons down to the driver include hitting curbs, mounting curbs to park on the pavement and excessive speed over speed bumps. Reasons due to the vehicle include the trend for lower profile tyres, the use of shorter springs and dampers to enable a lower bonnet design and possibly the use of springs with unfinished ends (I have doubts over this last one).
As for wheels, low profile tyres aren't helping matters.
Even a spring is unlikely to break at the point of hitting a pothole, it may be weakened so it fails sooner but I find it hard to believe that a queue of cars are broken down next to a pothole as the article appears to claim.
Odd, isn't it, given how many of us have a smartphone? Almost as if they prefer to remain in ignorance so they don't have to repair potholes or pay damage as a result of their negligence.
Well, it isn't that simple - if they ignore reports from these apps that are sent to them, the courts consider that the council is still aware even if they choose not to read the emails. So public claims for damage that are fought hard will succeed.
In the Olden Days when you actually had tyres with sidewalls rather than the elastic bands they fit nowadays you could drive over pretty much anything without something breaking.
(except air quality and Medical Science
It has already been proved that 20mph limits & road humps don't reduce accidents, so when will they admit that potholes increase them? I'm getting a little bored with driving 2.5miles to the local town using avoidance strategies. Which is the best way to do it? Drive really close to a parked car or drive on the other side of the road?
I had a number of 1980s cars and thy al had a life expectancy of around 100,000 miles/10 years. My modern cars have a life expectancy of around 200,000 miles/20 years. My current car starts first time every time and has only ever needed unscheduled garage attention for pothole damage and an idiot taking off a wing mirror on a narrow lane.
In terms of reliability I'd take my modern Ford over any of the cars from when I started driving.
You may have a point about wheels and tyres, but I'm more inclined to blame a lack of maintenance on the narrow country lanes around here. The other side of the coin on modern tyres is that I get very few actual punctures on modern tyres. I had a cluster a few years back when my tyres picked up 3 nail punctures in 6 months, but apart from that I don't think I've had any other punctures in the last 15 years.
(except air quality and Medical Science