Potholes

WayneBF

I recently made a claim for damage to my car made by a pothole while following your guidance. I have just received an email back from the council saying "If they can prove that it has taken reasonable care in all the circumstances to properly maintain the highway, it provides a complete defence. This road is subject to regular inspections 12 times a year. The safety inspection prior to your incident was completed on 10 December 2021". (The day I hit the pothole was 10th January 2022.) "The defect appears to have developed subsequent to this safety inspection and therefore the Council was not aware of its existence at the time of your incident. The Council has a reasonable system of safety inspections and maintenance for this road and is therefore able to establish a complete defence under Section 58 of the Highways Act. In this respect, we must inform you that the Council is not liable for the cost of the damage to your property. We will not review a decision unless you write to us providing significant new evidence." I enclose a photo of the huge pothole where someone has placed bricks in it to make it less deep. Any help on what to do next would be highly appreciated. Thankyou, Wayne.

Sandtree

What evidence do you have to the contrary? 

Its your responsibility to show their negligence and the simple existence of a pothole isn't evidence in itself. 

Bigphil1474

It could just be a standard council response. If you suspect they did know about it, you could put in a Freedom of Information request - keep it simple, something like 'How many pothole reports were made on this road between 1st November 2021 and 10th January 2022, including location.' If they have the info they must provide it. 
If the council were genuinely unaware that the pothole existed before you hit it, and they inspected the road as required, then they aren't liable.

Ibrahim5

I hit a pothole recently. After reading
https://www.gov.uk/claim-for-damage-to-your-vehicle

and the MSE guidance I thought a claim was easy. However on further research I discovered claims were rarely successful and forum posters often were subjected to the normal MSE forum abuse, "why didn't you drive round it etc".

Brie

I had read somewhere that the only way a council will acknowledge that it knew about a pothole was if there was paint around it to mark it for repair.  No idea if that's particularly special paint but I assume each council will know what colour/brand it uses.  Of course someone who lives right by the pothole might also mark it so that they don't constantly bounce in and out of it each time they leave their drive.

SonOfPearl

@WayneBF I'm afraid that your council are quite correct in their response from a legal perspective. I used to work in an open plan office with a council insurance department and I heard that same reply countless times to understandably angry callers.

Your best chance of getting compensation is if someone notified the council of the pothole since their last inspection but before you damaged your car. Someone had obviously noticed it and put the bricks in it, but unless they told the council about it then the council wouldn't have known there was a problem. 

MSE has a guide which might be helpful...
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/pothole-claims/

WayneBF

Sandtree said:

What evidence do you have to the contrary? 

Its your responsibility to show their negligence and the simple existence of a pothole isn't evidence in itself. 

I sent them an invoice from the place that fixed my alloy wheel and another for the tyre, both places put on the invoice "caused by a pothole".

Car_54

WayneBF said:

Sandtree said:

What evidence do you have to the contrary? 

Its your responsibility to show their negligence and the simple existence of a pothole isn't evidence in itself. 

I sent them an invoice from the place that fixed my alloy wheel and another for the tyre, both places put on the invoice "caused by a pothole".

1. That doesn’t prove the council was negligent.
2. Anyway, how do the wheel and tyre guys know what caused the damage?

WayneBF

Car_54 said:

WayneBF said:

Sandtree said:

What evidence do you have to the contrary? 

Its your responsibility to show their negligence and the simple existence of a pothole isn't evidence in itself. 

I sent them an invoice from the place that fixed my alloy wheel and another for the tyre, both places put on the invoice "caused by a pothole".

1. That doesn’t prove the council was negligent.
2. Anyway, how do the wheel and tyre guys know what caused the damage?

Unless I get someone from the council to admit they are negligent, I don't know how else anyone could prove it. And wheel specialists are specialists in alloy wheels, looked at the damage and said the only thing that would cause that is a pothole. And the tyre people said the tyre was damaged due to the wheel damage.

Sandtree

WayneBF said:

Car_54 said:

WayneBF said:

Sandtree said:

What evidence do you have to the contrary? 

Its your responsibility to show their negligence and the simple existence of a pothole isn't evidence in itself. 

I sent them an invoice from the place that fixed my alloy wheel and another for the tyre, both places put on the invoice "caused by a pothole".

1. That doesn’t prove the council was negligent.
2. Anyway, how do the wheel and tyre guys know what caused the damage?

Unless I get someone from the council to admit they are negligent, I don't know how else anyone could prove it. And wheel specialists are specialists in alloy wheels, looked at the damage and said the only thing that would cause that is a pothole. And the tyre people said the tyre was damaged due to the wheel damage.

Well first of all when was the next inspection after the incident?

Others have already suggested doing a FoI request on pothole reports for this road. Other people post to local Facebook groups or other localised forum to try and find if anyone had previously reported the hole.  Those bricks dont look like they belong there so clearly someone appears to have attempted to lessen the situation.

I strongly contend that your "expert" is telling you what you want to hear, I strongly doubt anyone can tell the difference between the sharp shock of hitting the wall of a pothole or anything else. Plus as has been said... the existence of a pothole in itself doesn't make them liable... the courts realise councils dont have infinite budget to be able to inspect every inch of a road once an hour and hence is about them following their own guidelines on frequency of inspection and/or proof they knew about it and had reasonable opportunity to fix it before your incident.

Car_54

WayneBF said:

Car_54 said:

WayneBF said:

Sandtree said:

What evidence do you have to the contrary? 

Its your responsibility to show their negligence and the simple existence of a pothole isn't evidence in itself. 

I sent them an invoice from the place that fixed my alloy wheel and another for the tyre, both places put on the invoice "caused by a pothole".

1. That doesn’t prove the council was negligent.
2. Anyway, how do the wheel and tyre guys know what caused the damage?

Unless I get someone from the council to admit they are negligent, I don't know how else anyone could prove it. 

So you have no evidence of negligence.