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.”