It has been reported today that councils apparently spend more on pothole compensation claims than they do on repairing the roads that we drive on. The story goes that about £53 million was paid out to motorists in England and Wales last year, according to councils whose staff spent 40,801 days dealing with claims.
This money would mend almost one million potholes, a significant number I’m sure you’d agree. In contrast, there was only about £52 million spent on actually fixing the problem. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that there’s clearly something a bit odd there.
The figures were made available by the Local Government Association, which represents more than 400 councils across England and Wales. It warned that there may well be more claims made as the credit crunch hits more and more consumers.
Now, I have a bit of a problem with this. The fact remains that this seems to suggest that all motorists are a bunch of swingeing, litigation-creating ar*seholes who simply cannot wait to get a slice of all that juicy money. I’d actually suggest that the opposite is true (after all, we pay so bloody much to run our damn cars).
If the holes weren’t there in the first place (and I’ve driven over some terrible road surfaces) – of which some suggest there are more than 3.5 million – then we wouldn’t actually have to bring legal action to get our cars repaired in the first place.
I find it disgusting that, after all the money we pay, Local Government is failing to take care of roads. Instead, it would rather wait until it receives enough complaints, and then do something about it. Of course, it’s only after that when they complain that we are trying to sue due to our cars having burst tyres, damaged suspension etc.
It’s a bit of a circle really. We pay money to the councils in our areas, they upkeep some of the roads. They fail to upkeep others, so we sue when they should have spent the money there in the first place. Where do we go from here? Well, you could always take a train…
Hi Mr Butterscotch,
Whilst you have highlighted the frustrations of road users and the general public, with regard to potholes, the actual facts of the matter are far worse and if ratepayers fully understood how their money was largely wasted in addressing these road defects there would probably be a mini uprising.
To make the matter worse, there is new technology readily available which will immediately improve the situation and prevent the waste of millions of taxpayers money which could be put to far better use.
Unfortunately, the Local Authorities reluctance to change and determination to hang on to road repair methods which are totally non-sustainable and completely out of date means that the pothole problem just gets worse and worse whilst effectively throwing your tax money down the drain.
I am happy to fully explain this dilemma to you if you have the interest.
Regards,
Neil.
Hi Neil,
I’d love to hear the rest of the dilemma as you so eloquently put it, so I’ll be in touch.