Pothole catch 22

Yesmilady

Hello all,

I went over a pretty big pothole a while ago, messed up my car pretty badly and now I'm stuck wondering what to do...

I'm fairly confident the claim will get upheld, due to the state of the road (massive hole), the fact that somebody had marked out the pothole beforehand and the fact that 3 other cars hit it and burst tyres on the same day.

So. I got a burst tyre and slightly bent wheel rim, both of which have now been repaired. I've got the receipts for those. The cover came off my catalytic converter, but I've not even thought about it. However, the real issue is that my passenger side seat airbag went off.

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So this means that presumably, to have a road legal car, I'll have to either get the airbag itself replaced - which no mechanic will give me a quote for, without me paying to have them look at it - or I'll have to replace the whole SRS module including the airbag, according to some guy, who said it would cost a grand.

The car is only worth £900 so if that was the case it would be easier to write it off, no?

Thing is, I can't claim for pothole damage because I don't know the exact amount or have a receipt/quote.

I can't get a quote for the airbag/SRS without paying £100.

I don't want to spend that £100 if I don't know I'll get it back.

I don't know if I'll get it back because I can't claim until I have an amount.

And the people at the council seem to be intent on ducking all contact - safe to say they are no help or advice whatsoever. They won't answer questions about their own claim process, just give vague hints and repeat the generic instructions.

Does anyone know how they would respond to a pothole claim form with the amount left blank or "TBC"? How about if I wrote "Write off value £900" or something?

Could I perhaps get my insurers to confirm that they would write it off if it was them, something like that?

Or does anyone know if the council will pay out the assessment fee, £100, in the case of a successful claim? An unsuccessful claim? I can just spend this but I really take issue with having to do that. This wasn't my fault, after all, and £100 isn't pocket shrapnel.

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What should I do? Pay £100, get a quote and see? But then I risk losing £100...

Put in the claim with some kind of explanation of the uncertain amount? Ie meaning something like “If you uphold the claim, I’ll get back to you with a price”?

- This would be best, and presumably the cost of repair has no bearing on the worthiness of the claim?

If the claim is incorrectly filled in, can I resubmit it without penalty? As many times as I like?

The only other option is; if I got an airbag ECU reset off ebay (£50-100), would I still need the airbag itself to be replaced in order for the car to be road legal? Presume so.

TIA for any help, much love :beer:

Yesmilady

It's this noble beauty (not this exact one)



A Honda Accord Sport from 2002

AdrianC

You hit a pothole hard enough to set the airbag off?
A pothole that was already marked...?

Whatever - if it had been inspected and marked, and was due for repair within the timescale, they are not liable. Claim off your own insurance if you wish, but you'll be paying your excess, losing your NCB and declaring it for five years.

As far as "road legal" goes, you can drive around with the airbag hanging out of the dash. As far as the MOT goes, it's a fail with the bag "obviously missing", "obviously inoperative" or the dash light "indicating a system malfunction" (which would include not self-testing, so no pulling the bulb).
https://www.mot-testing.service.gov.uk/documents/manuals/class3457/Section-7-Other-equipment.html#section_7.1.5

ChrisK....._3

That send to defy any logic. So if a council identifies a piece of road needs repairing, they then become not responsible for any damage it causes. Maybe they should just identify all best repairs today and save a fortune in claims. Maybe just identify all road as in need of repair to save even more

AdrianC wrote: »

You hit a pothole hard enough to set the airbag off?
A pothole that was already marked...?

Whatever - if it had been inspected and marked, and was due for repair within the timescale, they are not liable. Claim off your own insurance if you wish, but you'll be paying your excess, losing your NCB and declaring it for five years.

As far as "road legal" goes, you can drive around with the airbag hanging out of the dash. As far as the MOT goes, it's a fail with the bag "obviously missing", "obviously inoperative" or the dash light "indicating a system malfunction" (which would include not self-testing, so no pulling the bulb).
https://www.mot-testing.service.gov.uk/documents/manuals/class3457/Section-7-Other-equipment.html#section_7.1.5

AdrianC

ChrisK..... wrote: »

That send to defy any logic. So if a council identifies a piece of road needs repairing, they then become not responsible for any damage it causes.

You have it the wrong way round.


They are only liable if they haven't inspected regularly enough and repaired flaws found within the appropriate timescale. Both of those periods depend on the type of road and the size of damage.

Unless it was very serious damage to a major route, if it was inspected and flagged the day before, then they're well within the repair period.

ChrisK....._3

I've just thought, when someone buys one of my eBay sales, I should just mark it as "identified for posting", then I can post it, as and whenever I feel like it. I like these new rules. I'm telling my wife that I have 'identified' we need a new shed building then she has to get off my case right

AdrianC

I suspect you deliberately ignored the "repaired within the appropriate timescale" bit to stoke your outrage, untroubled by reality.

Yesmilady

Thanks for your help

You hit a pothole hard enough to set the airbag off?
A pothole that was already marked...?

It was kind of in a dip in the road, invisible. The first I knew of it was when everything went bang and my passenger seat started smoking. And car started skidding. That's why I hadn't slowed for it too, hence the airbag as well as just the tyre.

if it had been inspected and marked, and was due for repair within the timescale, they are not liable

Do you know how I find this out? FOI request to the council for pothole inspections & repairs in the period? And is there a schedule of acceptable timescales for it anywhere?

Unless it was very serious damage to a major route, if it was inspected and flagged the day before, then they're well within the repair period.

- it was a decent sized hole, in a secondary route. Ie big enough that you couldn't miss the pothole. Road single carriageway, medium traffic mornings & afternoons.

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So what would your advice be? Forget the claim and just take on the loss myself? Just use the car in its current state until next MOT? It's only got until April this year.

If I sold it for scrap, would there be any way of claiming for the difference in value had I sold the car without the pothole damage?

Basically does anyone have any insight into the actual claim process itself?

Yesmilady

Alternatively, I could live without the airbag as it's a little side one. How about the following:

• Pay £60 for postal Airbag ECU reset
• Replace ECU
• Somehow disconnect the blown airbag from the system so the SRS light won't depend on it being present (is this possible? Easy?)
• Get rid of the blown airbag itself
• Sew up the seat so it's no longer "obviously" missing or defective
• Return to road with working SRS, SRS light not on - and no £1000 repair fee

• Find a garage that's not good at spotting airbags which are subtly missing!?
• Pass MOT as no "obvious" airbag problems and SRS light not on

• Survive any future crashes as other airbags should work?

• Claim afterwards in the vague hope of some redress.

Is this plausible?

angrycrow

Even easier option, find a like for like car in scrap yard with same interior. Swap passenger seat and airbag module from scrap car into yours. Job done and expect to pay under £100, at the right yard under £50.

Ectophile

Yesmilady wrote: »

And the people at the council seem to be intent on ducking all contact - safe to say they are no help or advice whatsoever. They won't answer questions about their own claim process, just give vague hints and repeat the generic instructions.

The council have no interest in helping you at all. They want you to go away and not claim off them.


If you want to make a claim, you will have to have a total bill that you are claiming for, and evidence that the council were negligent in not repairing the pothole fast enough.


So you need to know how much the car will cost to repair. You will also need to have done a FOI (Freedom of Information) request to find out when they knew about the pothole, and how long it took them to do anything about it.


If their time scales to repair potholes are reasonable, then they can claim that they were not negligent. If they took too long repairing it, then they are negligent.