Pot holes advice needed

Nearly crashed last night after hitting a large pot hole on the way home, luckily I wasn't going that fast. Looks like the front wheel is toast, anyone got any ideas how I go about getting the cost of repairs back from the council?
I was going to start by getting some photos of the offending peice of road.

Check this out
http://www.potholes.co.uk/claims/step_by_step_guide

[STRAMASHER]

I was thinking of asking you where, but they are everywhere. Can't see feck all with a load of street lights out (for weeks) , heavy rain (for weeks) and roads not getting repaired (for months!)

I reckon folk must think I'm hauf-scooped, zig-zagging down the road.


Take a photo with some sort of measure to show width depth etc. and your knackered wheel, good luck. They must get a ton of these claims so I'm sure you will get a positive result eventually.

[timwilky]

Problem is that you need to demonstrate they knew of the defect and had been negligent in failing to rectify it in a timely manner.

We get a lot of these cases through work (boss does profeshional witness) you need to get out there sharpish and take daylight photographs you're looking for markings on the road (usually yellow) which signifiy a council worker has been out and spotted the pot hole. It does however also mean a team will be along any day now to fill the pot hole so you need to act sharpish.
If the incident happened in the dark you'll also need pictures of the road at night time and the location of streetlights closest to it. If other obsticals (white lining/manhole covers) forced you towards the pothole its worth taking pictures of these and plotting your path on google earth.

Present all that to the council and they generally collapse, its cheaper and easier to just pay you the £300 for a new wheel than and tyre than it is to take it through court. As Tim said though you're major issue is if the pothole is one which has only just opened up, you need to at least have some idea that its been there long enough to accuse them of neglectful maintenance.

There's a website that cyclists use to report potholes, you could see if it's on there to prove how long it's been around. The roads where I live can be awful, they seem to neglect the road falling apart until it's too late and then do a rush jub and just fill in the biggest holes with some tar. It's not long before these crack up again and form bigger holes.

How bad is the wheel?. Maidstone Motoliner repair wheels and do a very very good job and have repaired some stuff for our customers that looked beyond repair!.

Originally Posted by Owenski

We get a lot of these cases through work (boss does profeshional witness) you need to get out there sharpish and take daylight photographs you're looking for markings on the road (usually yellow) which signifiy a council worker has been out and spotted the pot hole. It does however also mean a team will be along any day now to fill the pot hole so you need to act sharpish.
If the incident happened in the dark you'll also need pictures of the road at night time and the location of streetlights closest to it. If other obsticals (white lining/manhole covers) forced you towards the pothole its worth taking pictures of these and plotting your path on google earth.

Present all that to the council and they generally collapse, its cheaper and easier to just pay you the £300 for a new wheel than and tyre than it is to take it through court. As Tim said though you're major issue is if the pothole is one which has only just opened up, you need to at least have some idea that its been there long enough to accuse them of neglectful maintenance.

This only works if you can prove they have spotted the hole (as Owenski says, sprayed markings are a good sign) but haven't done anything about it. It really doesn't matter if it's just opened up or it's been there for weeks - if nobody else has reported your hole (and let's face it, we are all guilty of just riding or driving round them and doing nothing pretty much 100% of the time) and the next scheduled check on the road condition isn't due yet, then you're stuffed.

I hit a pothole in the Fiesta 18 months back and completely trashed the nearside front alloy. The road only needed to be checked every six months (minor road), had been checked only four months earlier and I was the first person to report the hole. Despite quite a lot of correspondence back and forth I got nowhere, basically because the council were just about in the right legally, and they knew it.

I wish you the best of luck Gaggin.... but don't get your hopes up.

The same happened to me last year in my car after all the ice so i followed the steps on the potholes website sent it off to the local council only to find out it was a privatley owned road. I thought i might aswell send the details to the company that own he road, i pretty much thought that would be the last i hear however!!! A week later a cheque in the post for £500! WICKED!

Defo worth following the steps on the site!!!

Thanks for all your advice. I'll go back and photograph it tomorrow in daylight, I haven't had a chance yet Hurricane Bawbag yesterday and public transport. I went to potholes.co.uk plenty of good advice on there.