Dangerous Potholes in Hastings

Repair bills have hit over six million UK drivers in 2015 thanks to potholes.

Research from car repair company Kwik Fit found that over last year, 6.3m drivers had damage from hitting potholes totalling £684m in bills – an average £108.60 for repairs to tyres, wheels, suspension, exhausts or other bodywork.

Hitting a pothole is most likely to have caused damage in Yorkshire & Humber and London, where over a third (37% and 35% respectively) of drivers hitting a pothole had to make repairs. Welsh drivers were most likely to be financially unscathed from the impact of a pothole, although even here, 17% faced repair bills.

Collectively,  drivers in the South East, who have had to pay £108,149,130 for repairs caused by potholes, followed by drivers in London, with the capital’s roads causing £91,368,450 worth of damage.

Per individual driver, the costliest damage was suffered in the east of England, where drivers had to pay an average of £163.68, nearly three times as much as drivers in Wales, where the average repair bill was £61.83. Welsh drivers have collectively faced the lowest bill of all regions at £12.4million, less than half the cost to drivers in the north east of England, the second lowest region.

The Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance survey out today (23.03.2016) reveals that only £13.5m has been paid out in compensation in England and Wales, just 2.1% of the total cost of damage.

Kwik Fit also found that 31% of motorists who hit a pothole in the last twelve months say they did so because it was hidden by water and they thought it was just a puddle.   Kwik Fit found that nearly half (46%) of those hitting a pothole said they would have risked colliding with other traffic if they had swerved around it.  4% of those hitting a pothole were honest enough to admit that they were driving too fast, and couldn’t stop in time.

Roger Griggs, communications director at Kwik Fit, said: “We all understand that council budgets are stretched right across the country, but this research shows the financial burden being placed upon individual motorists.  And that’s purely the repair bill – it doesn’t take into account the inconvenience to people in having their cars off the road for repairs.”

This is a ridiculous situation, the roads in East Sussex are verging on medieval. We need our roads to be replaced it is a waste of time just filling them only to have to fill them again after a downpour.

All recent governments seem to really know how to waste our tax pounds, common sense seems to be lacking among the people we elected to put things right, they must get away from this make do and mend attitude that has spilt over from world war 2 and get a grip. We hear our politicians talk about investment all the time, for god sake invest in our roads and stop wasting our tax pounds on this ridiculous merry go round of filling the same holes time and time again especially here in Hastings. And by the way lets have our white lines replaced some of our mini roundabout markings are completely worn out and are an accident waiting to happen.