Pothole damage costs mount for fleets (video)

Fleet decision-makers are counting the cost of potholes, with one fleet having to write off a car with thousands of pounds worth of damage.

Dale Eynon, Defra's director of group fleet services, told October’s Fleet News at 10 webinar that it is suffering more pothole damage to vehicles and had to write off a car for the first time ever after hitting a pothole.

“It damaged the sump of the engine so much that the car was written with about £8,000 of damage,” he added.

The AA dealt with 631,852 pothole related incidents in 2023, the highest for five years. It wants local authorities to limit the practice of temporary pothole repairs or patches and, where possible, every pothole or patch to be repaired permanently, to adhere to UK-wide repair and inspection standards, and report annually on the repairs undertaken.

Appearing alongside Eynon, AA fleet director, Duncan Webb, said: “The one thing I think we could do more as a country is almost make it a national issue, so that nationally, there is a pothole team that has the authority to not just do the core 'A' roads, but they go and do local roads as well.”

Meanwhile, National Grid fleet manager, Lorna McAtear, highlighted how potholes posed a greater risk during the wetter winter months. “The problem you’ve got with potholes is when it rains, you don’t see them,” she explained. 

“You don’t see how deep they are. You don’t know if it’s just a tiny little puddle that you’re going into or a massive pothole.”

Earlier this year, the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) revealed that the majority of local roads are 15 years from structural failure, with councils facing a shortfall of £16.3 billion to fix carriageways plagued by potholes.

The data, from its Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (Alarm) survey report, also showed that less than half (47%) of roads in England and Wales are classed as being in good structural condition.

The remaining 53% – more than 107,000 miles – will not last beyond the end of the next decade.

The autumn Budget committed the Government to providing almost a 50% increase on 2024-25 funding for local roads maintenance. 

This, it says, will go further than its commitment to fix an additional one million potholes across England each year, investing almost £1.6bn to maintain and renew roads, an increase of £500 million on 2024-25.

More than half (56%) of drivers surveyed for the RAC Report on Motoring say the condition and maintenance of roads for which councils are responsible was one of their top motoring concerns.

This was up seven percentage points compared to 2023 (49%) and 21 percentage points ahead of their next biggest concern, the cost of insurance.

The survey also revealed that more than a quarter of drivers (27%) say their vehicle has suffered damage as a result of potholes in the past 12 months, a figure which rises to 32% among those who live in rural areas.

Punctures (47%) are the most common problem reported, followed by wheel damage (43%) and broken suspension springs (29%).

Watch the pothole debate on Fleet News at 10 below