Pothole damage to car, can I claim?

Steve11

Hi All for the second time this year I have hit a massive pothole in the road bursting my tyre on the car the most recent was yesterday when I hit a huge pothole and burst a new 3 week old 110euro tyre!! Really fed up now this happened on the Blessington to Naas road do I have any case to claim?

porsche boy

In short, no.

there have been plenty of threads on it. The local county or city councils are responsable for the roads but not accountable for any potholes or damage incurred by them.

beanie10

Hardly the councils fault you drove into a pot hole! You could try not drive into them next time.

ljpg

been there and tried,waste of time,just fix your damage and move on.

Danandrew

Steve11 wrote: »

Hi All for the second time this year I have hit a massive pothole in the road bursting my tyre on the car the most recent was yesterday when I hit a huge pothole and burst a new 3 week old 110euro tyre!! Really fed up now this happened on the Blessington to Naas road do I have any case to claim?

Hi.
It happened my sister last year down here in the sunny south east. She hit a pot hole & burst the tyre but also damaged the alloy. It cost about €200 in total to fix the lot. She contacted someone in the council in charge of roads & was passed from pillar to post from Jan until they finally paid up in October (minus an admin fee of about €20). They made it quite difficult, obviously they looked for receipts & photos but also requested a map to pinpoint exact location of pothole. After 6 months of her calling & looking for an update, she was informed that she had never sent in a claim form...which she had never been told was required!! But she got most of the cost back which was the main thing. Worth asking anyway!

Damien360

porsche boy wrote: »

In short, no.

there have been plenty of threads on it. The local county or city councils are responsable for the roads but not accountable for any potholes or damage incurred by them.

That is not quite true. My brother in law had a damaged alloy and of course tyre when he hit a massive pothole in Dublin. He took a pic of the pothole and the damage, wrote to the council including the pics and receipt for repair and they gave him a cheque for the damage. That was 10 years ago and I cannot remember the value. The pothole was fixed before he got his cheque.

Steve11

beanie10 wrote: »

Hardly the councils fault you drove into a pot hole! You could try not drive into them next time.

You could try grow yourself a brain

Steve11

Thanks all I have been looking at a few cases online it's a bit hit and miss but worth a try I guess

mickdw

Is important that you tackle any claim the correct way as council are only responsible in specific circumstances.
Basically they have to be shown to be negligent in order for a claim to be successful.
So if they leave roadworks in a condition that caused damage they are responsible.
If they carry out a substandard repair on a pothole, they are responsible. If they fail to act on numerous reports of a dangerous defect they would be responsible although may be hard to prove.
So in this case of hitting a pothole, you really would need to try to prove that the council carried out a poor repair in the past. If photos could show previous evidence of filling around the edge of the pothole or evidence of the recent repairs that did not rectify the pothole you could make a claim that way.
Just claiming that you damaged your car does not make them liable.
Having studied this about 15 years ago, I believe there was an eec directive in the 70s that if written into law here would have made council absolutely responsible for all road conditions. The government managed to ignore that one when it suited them.

monkeysnapper

beanie10 wrote: »

Hardly the councils fault you drove into a pot hole! You could try not drive into them next time.

What like go around it , maybe head on into another car .

Of course it's the councils fault, we pay our road tax, at least we expect that our roads be safe to drive on .

kippy

monkeysnapper wrote: »

What like go around it , maybe head on into another car .

Of course it's the councils fault, we pay our road tax, at least we expect that our roads be safe to drive on .

Maybe slow down.....

Steve11

Just seen this also story from the mirror so maybe there is hope after all...

Furious drivers have claimed nearly €75,000 in compensation from the country’s biggest council as potholes wreak havoc on their motors.

Official figures reveal Dublin City Council received 260 claims between 2010 and 2012 and 248 of these were settled with cash payments.

That means a whopping 95% who submit a formal complaint receive some sort of compensation from the council.

The average amount of cash paid out to peeved motorists was €300 but consumer chiefs say that the public need to be educated in how to claim the cash.

biko

Steve11 wrote: »

You could try grow yourself a brain

Yellow card, be nice

Contact the local council. They should be able to guide you through the process, if one exists.

Guy:Incognito

monkeysnapper wrote: »

Of course it's the councils fault, we pay our road tax, at least we expect that our roads be safe to drive on .

Our wha? https://www.motortax.ie/OMT/welcome.do;jsessionid=0aa0114730d7f10b543f4b0a4fc0ac4ff74704b9b5f0.e38PaNaSbh0RaO0MaNqOe0

biko

Let's not get dug down into this "road tax" vs "motor tax" blah. It's motor tax.
Thanks

greasepalm

and they still want a big hunk of it some roads are dam right dangerous,a few very heavy frosts will add loads more.

barbs84

I hit a pot hole last October burst 2 tyres and damaged 2 alloys I sent a receipt in to the council for the damage and a letter saying I pay road tax towards the maintenance of the roads this road was not maintenaned so I want full reimbursement of my road tax or for the damage done I received a check in the post a week later for the damage with full and final settlement written on the letter

monkeysnapper

kippy wrote: »

Maybe slow down.....

Ok maybe I'll slow down ...... But what about the other person that swerves to miss the pot hole and careers into me .

ustari

Happened me just outside the racecourse coming into Naas before. After much hassling, couple of months worth, I was given half the repair amount. Worth trying.

Noccy_Mondy

Most dangerous ones are the freak ones on main, busy roads where traffic is at high speed. One wouldn't even notice. Then you have the likes of the by roads where we have to go from one side to another to avoid them. There's a few persistent ones on my road, even though the council do fill them, there's a stream of water constantly on the road, so they get eroded in again. Tbh, I'm so used to those certain few, I know exactly how much clearance to give, often passing by them with mm to spare and not crawling either :cool:

Kinet1c

barbs84 wrote: »

I hit a pot hole last October burst 2 tyres and damaged 2 alloys I sent a receipt in to the council for the damage and a letter saying I pay road tax towards the maintenance of the roads this road was not maintenaned so I want full reimbursement of my road tax or for the damage done I received a check in the post a week later for the damage with full and final settlement written on the letter

Similar experience but was quite drawn out as a contractor had not completed work as expected. Ended up getting money from the contractor as opposed to the council.

Sobanek

They probably do pay out claims. Damaged a brand new tyre on a pothole. When I came back four hours later, to take photos, it was fixed!
Not a great experience after forking out 100 quid on a single tyre

kippy

monkeysnapper wrote: »

Ok maybe I'll slow down ...... But what about the other person that swerves to miss the pot hole and careers into me .

Same as any potential obstacle that you might encounter on a road tbh.

pippip

I've seen on here before that if its a previously repaired pothole then the council is responsible but not new potholes previously unreported.
I've never seen official info to support this but in liability terms it makes sense.

This may explain the differences in some people getting full, half and no payouts being reported on this thread.

beanie10

Steve11 wrote: »

You could try grow yourself a brain

Yeah not surprised with your respone. The condition of the road is not the councils responsibility.
If you were to skid on ice and crash would you be claiming off the council- NO!.
Like wise if a tree fell across the road.
Grow up OP, "expect the unexpected" and all that.
You should be driving at a speed that allows you to stop safely if anything unforeseen occurs. Not plough straight into it and damage your wheel.

beanie10

monkeysnapper wrote: »

What like go around it , maybe head on into another car .

Of course it's the councils fault, we pay our road tax, at least we expect that our roads be safe to drive on .

We pay motor tax not road tax. Can't be making up taxes to suit your argument!

mightyreds

A lad on a bike hit a pothole outside my house about 3 years ago and wrote off his bike and did a fair bit of damage to himself I met him outside taking pictures one day, he said he was putting in a claim for the bike, this pothole was a monster though not so much wide just massively deep, pothole was filled about 2 days later

pippip

beanie10 wrote: »

Yeah not surprised with your respone. The condition of the road is not the councils responsibility.
If you were to skid on ice and crash would you be claiming off the council- NO!.
Like wise if a tree fell across the road.
Grow up OP, "expect the unexpected" and all that.
You should be driving at a speed that allows you to stop safely if anything unforeseen occurs. Not plough straight into it and damage your wheel.

In fairness not good examples, the council didn't put the ice or the tree there but they did put the road there and its condition to a certain extent is expected to be good enough not to damage your car.

You cannot be expected to miss a pothole at night, you would need to be going so slow it would be unsafe to others.
If you are looking at the road as intently as you seem to expect everyone to you would be giving far too little attention to other areas such as on coming traffic etc.

Board Walker

So i hit a Pothole on the commons road in Cork city two weeks ago. There had been torrential rain and the previously fixed pothole was ejected because the hole had not been sealed around with tar. I had a bad blowout and my new tyre cost 283 euro, I have documented it and the tyre and when i went back to take photos there were cars swerving badly to avoid it. It was across from Dulox.

The guy in the tyre shop said if its bad enough the council will pay out up to 70% so i've sent in the claim after reporting the hole and it was fixed the following morning.

A friend of mine in the council has told me another 3 people claimed for the same hole and my local guy in the Co Council told me they should give back something alright so its always worth investigating.

I sent it in monday last week so to be continued.

BTW i hit it so bad my dash cam came off the window and i found my number plate at the site when i returned so that got blown off also. How i didnt crack my alloy ill never know.

cartrouble567

how did you submit the claim, just hit a deep pothole and now have a flat tire, really annoyed as its not the first time and this one was on a bend so hard to avoid