Hello,

bad night for all concerned in my town. MASSIVE pothole in the road, I go
over it at 20ish, and my offside front wheel is buggered, along with
possibly the back wheel. Had to change the back wheel.

2 different vehicles go past and say 'that happened to me earlier' - so why
was I the only frigging person to shove a cone lying nearby in front of it?!

Anyway, I've got some rubbish camera phone (3 megapixel my arse sony
ericjimbob, they look attrocious...) pictures, but obviously without the use
of a ruler in it, it's just a picture of a hole in the dark, with
street-lighting and a xeon flash, so it's not exactly decent.

There a number of photographs of the area that I have uploaded he

http://s119.photobucket.com/albums/o135/davergla/

Note that the hole had been filled in when I went back to get some
semi-decent pictures, as you will notice the pictures in the dark taken with
a phone camera aren't fantastic, although I think they do display that the
depth of the pothole is pretty deep if you're going over it at any speed
over 5mph.

I came back with a sony cybershot job later on, 15 minutes in fact only to
find the hole filled in with something that must've surely been done by our
council, I'm guessing.

What can I do? Right now I know I need a new front offside wheel, but I'm
worried that after I get the suspension and everything else checked out at a
local garage, there will be a large repair bill. It's a 5 year old car I was
using today, to give it a checkover, so I don't doubt the suspension and
other parts may have been nearing replacement-time for safety reasons
anyway.


Thanks,

David.

David R wrote:
Hello,

bad night for all concerned in my town. MASSIVE pothole in the road, I go
over it at 20ish, and my offside front wheel is buggered, along with
possibly the back wheel. Had to change the back wheel.

2 different vehicles go past and say 'that happened to me earlier' - so why
was I the only frigging person to shove a cone lying nearby in front of it?!

Anyway, I've got some rubbish camera phone (3 megapixel my arse sony
ericjimbob, they look attrocious...) pictures, but obviously without the use
of a ruler in it, it's just a picture of a hole in the dark, with
street-lighting and a xeon flash, so it's not exactly decent.
There a number of photographs of the area that I have uploaded he

http://s119.photobucket.com/albums/o135/davergla/

You should have taken a picture of hole + cone, then hole, with cone
submerged to the deepest part of the hole.

However, they presumably knew about the hole - you can probably get
information about it under FOIA.

As a first step, ring the council, and see what they say.

In article ,
says...

bad night for all concerned in my town. MASSIVE pothole in the road

Looks like a puddle in the night shots, and a not uncommon bit of bodge
Mcadam in the daylight ones.

If it was /that/ bad, and you are /that/ concerned, methinks better
photo 'evidence' is required.

What have the local authority said?

"Tx2" wrote in message
T...
In article ,
says...

bad night for all concerned in my town. MASSIVE pothole in the road

Looks like a puddle in the night shots, and a not uncommon bit of bodge
Mcadam in the daylight ones.

If it was /that/ bad, and you are /that/ concerned, methinks better
photo 'evidence' is required.

What have the local authority said?

Well I was hardly given an opportunity to take pictures, was I? The daylight
ones seem like 'bodge', as the hole was just filled in as I came back with a
camera. So I'm afraid that as I do not carry a measuring tape or 5 megapixel
camera with decent flash and manual-focus that I could not take adequate
pictures at the time.

It *is* that bad, I know of 3 people personally who have experienced it, and
without telling the garage the problem, have been reported similar repair
costs of £300.

That's just the people I personally know, there *will* be many others who
had the same problem.

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 15:30:08 +0000, "David R"
wrote:

snip


What can I do? Right now I know I need a new front offside wheel, but I'm
worried that after I get the suspension and everything else checked out at a
local garage, there will be a large repair bill. It's a 5 year old car I was
using today, to give it a checkover, so I don't doubt the suspension and
other parts may have been nearing replacement-time for safety reasons
anyway.



There is not necessarily *anything* you can do.

You would need to find some evidence that the hole had been there for
a significant period before being dealt with. From the sound of it,
the hole was only there for a few hours, and if they can show that
they have procedures in place for dealing with any reported to them,
and procedures for checking themselves at reasonable intervals, they
are unlikely to have any liability.

I know you feel that it was not your fault, so somebody should be
compensating you, but it isn't necessarily anybody else's fault
either.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
If money could talk, it would say goodbye.
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

"Alex Heney" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 15:30:08 +0000, "David R"
There is not necessarily *anything* you can do.

You would need to find some evidence that the hole had been there for
a significant period before being dealt with. From the sound of it,
the hole was only there for a few hours, and if they can show that
they have procedures in place for dealing with any reported to them,
and procedures for checking themselves at reasonable intervals, they
are unlikely to have any liability.

I know you feel that it was not your fault, so somebody should be
compensating you, but it isn't necessarily anybody else's fault
either.

The hole was there for 3 days in total I am reliably informed. I wasn't in
the area for those few days, also why I had no prior local knowledge of it.

I understand what you're saying mind you. I still suspect that on the day it
happened, someone would have phoned the council to complain, as the number
of people with flat tyres my friends and relatives seesn beside it sounds
pretty high. It's dark up here in Scotland a lot, so any lack of light made
the thing quite hard to see.

Will phone the council on Monday and update on the situation though.

In article ,
says...

Well I was hardly given an opportunity to take pictures, was I? The daylight
ones seem like 'bodge', as the hole was just filled in as I came back with a
camera. So I'm afraid that as I do not carry a measuring tape or 5 megapixel
camera with decent flash and manual-focus that I could not take adequate
pictures at the time.

I was merely pointing out that the pictures didn't really do justice for
the severity you imply. No need to have a hissy fit and take your
frustration out on me for telling you how it is. If you show those to a
Council official, where is the proof of how deep the hole actually was?

Even armed with whatever it was you took the photo's with, you could
have put an everyday object *in* the hole to allow its depth to be
gauged somewhat better than the muddy puddle you ended up with. It's not
the quality of the shots that's the problem, it's the way the hole is
'presented' to the viewer.

It *is* that bad, I know of 3 people personally who have experienced it, and
without telling the garage the problem, have been reported similar repair
costs of £300.

So, those 3 people will also complain to the relevant department then?

That's just the people I personally know, there *will* be many others who
had the same problem.

Indeed, and I wasn't suggesting otherwise.

Good luck.

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 11:00:15 +0000, "David R"
wrote:

Will phone the council on Monday and update on the situation though.

You're not alone in this - see previous posts -
URL:http://groups.google.co.uk/groups/search?q=group%3Auk.legal.*+pothole&start=0&scorin g=d&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&.
Councils are quite used to receiving requests for compensation. Put a
claim in writing.

Daytona

"Tx2" wrote in message
T...
I was merely pointing out that the pictures didn't really do justice for
the severity you imply. No need to have a hissy fit and take your
frustration out on me for telling you how it is. If you show those to a
Council official, where is the proof of how deep the hole actually was?

It wasn't taking a hissy fit, I had nothing in the car to shove in the hole.
Then there would be the argument 'well how big WAS his wallet....was it a
wallet? was it a miniture-wallet?'

David R wrote:
"Tx2" wrote in message
T...
In article ,
says...

bad night for all concerned in my town. MASSIVE pothole in the road

Looks like a puddle in the night shots, and a not uncommon bit of bodge
Mcadam in the daylight ones.

If it was /that/ bad, and you are /that/ concerned, methinks better
photo 'evidence' is required.

What have the local authority said?

Well I was hardly given an opportunity to take pictures, was I? The daylight
ones seem like 'bodge', as the hole was just filled in as I came back with a
camera. So I'm afraid that as I do not carry a measuring tape or 5 megapixel
camera with decent flash and manual-focus that I could not take adequate
pictures at the time.

Bale out the hole with something, or poke the traffic cone down to the
deepest bit, and then take a picture.

The cone gives a perfectly good scale.