Pothole claim

Author
Discussion

Craigie

Original Poster:

1,228 posts

186 months

Friday 26th April
quotequote all
Ended up having to get two new springs and two new tyres after hitting a pothole in North Lanarkshire.
Has anyone had a successful claim against any Scottish council lately and if so, can give any pointers?
Or is it just not worth the hassle involved cos I will get nowhere anyway?

abzmike

9,290 posts

113 months

Friday 26th April
quotequote all
It's worth a claim, but only likley to succeed if the hole had been previously reported and the council had failed to fix it in the allowec time.

Heidfirst

184 posts

94 months

Friday 26th April
quotequote all

Windy Miller

186 posts

225 months

Monday 29th April
quotequote all
The situation in some parts of Scotland, Caithness especially, is that its not really a case of reporting 'a pothole'. They are all blended together, with the potential for there to be 20 or more potholes in a continuous 'outbreak'.

Maybe this is what the councils need? Numerous reports of thousands of potholes, even if to the extent it crashes their reporting system.

In the North of Scotland these last few weeks, Highland Council, and their contractor, can still find the time and money to be salting roads at the end of April, that are already so salt encrusted, the resemble the Bonneville flats. But yet pothols are of little interest to them. Meanwhile, most drivers continue to run around in 4 degrees on summer tyres (or whatever they found the cheapest), expecting outstanding grip as long as the councils keep throwing salt about.

Right, off to submit 10,000 pothole reports to the local council....

Rusty Old-Banger

4,928 posts

220 months

Monday 29th April
quotequote all
2 x broken springs?

S2red

2,533 posts

198 months

Monday 29th April
quotequote all
Yes I recently had a successful claim against Glasgow council

Proof of pot hole, give accurate location, check if historically it has been perviously reported else where on fix my street etc , check by looking at pothole is it a previously repaired one, give as much evidence as you can and keep at them

I was reimbursed for 2 tyres and 4 wheel alignment

Craigie

Original Poster:

1,228 posts

186 months

Monday 29th April
quotequote all
Rusty Old-Banger said:
2 x broken springs?
Recommended by both the AA recovery and the indie garage not to just replace one but to do the pair.

PaulD86

1,713 posts

133 months

Tuesday 30th April
quotequote all
Why would going over a pothole cause the failure of an otherwise good condition spring? That's a serious question. Whilst lots of damage to cars can be done by potholes - tyres and wheels in particular - how would a pothole break a spring, a component designed to compress and only able to compress within limits defined by other components? I'll suggest what actually happened is that the spring on your car had a split in the coating, water and salt got in over winter, it weakened and the pothole was merely the straw that broke the camels back.

To answer your question:

Collect evidence - photos of the defect and its location. Photos should show the context of the defect - a close up of a defect which could be anywhere is of sod all use to anyone.
Read the relevant section of the code of practice - Well Managed Highway Infrastructure.
A roads authority - there are 33 in Scotland, 32 are local authorities and one is the Scottish government - has an obligation to inspect its road assets for safety defects, details of which can be found in the above code of practice. The authority (probably council, but trunk roads are Scotsgov) should have a document which outlines how they carry out such inspections which should detail how frequent they are. This will depend on the roads hierarchy (for more see code of practice).
If the roads authority has inspected as per the correct schedule for the road, and has actioned defects found within an appropriate timeframe (see their inspection document) and they have responded appropriately to reports of potholes then the claim is likely to be repudiated as they will have acted reasonably. If they have not inspected and not responded to reports then you have a decent chance of success.

Forget fixmystreet!! It is a waste of space. Report defects to the relevant authority. Most have an online reporting tool which puts the report straight to the relevant system. Fix my street generates an email which is sent to the authority who would then need to input that data into their own system. So other than pointlessly generating extra work and slowing the process it achieves nothing. To be fair councils can sign up to it, and some do, in which case details can go into their reporting system, but it costs a whack and most authorities have concluded it makes more sense to spend that money doing something productive.

Request a claim form from the roads authority. Complete it honestly and accurately using what you have learned from the above documents. The percentage of claims which are exaggerated or inflated is huge so keep it honest. Submit claim and wait for response.

Most authorities will pass info they have plus your claim form to their insurer who will take a view on whether liability would attach if the matter were to be heard in court. In essence, if they think you'd win a claim in court they will pay, if they don't they wont.

If your claim is denied and you think that the authority has not followed their procedure or are in breach of the code of practice then you could submit an FOI for inspection records. This should not be done, as many advise, as a first step. FOIs generate a huge workload and are often totally unnecessary for a claim to be successful. Local authorities are not awash with cash - quite the opposite - and generating lots of FOIs just stretches resources even thinner. You can take the view of the poster above that swamping your local authority with reports is a clever idea, or you can act like a rational human being and interact sensibly.

It's always worth remembering that humans read claims and pothole reports and when they read total nonsense and drivel about how much council tax and road tax someone pays or how inept the council are, they aren't exactly being encouraged to help. Be factual, be polite.

But seriously, how does a pothole break a spring?

Windy Miller

186 posts

225 months

Tuesday 30th April
quotequote all
PaulD86 said:
But seriously, how does a pothole break a spring?
In the same way as it damaged the 2 tyres - By placing loadings on the system outside of the design envelope. 'In theory' and air filled rubber bag around the circumference of a metal wheel should not be damaged either. The air and rubber would simply compress and absorb the forces. But alas, that is not the case in all events if the forces exceed the design limits.

And metal is subject to fatigue if the forces are cycled enough, both in number of cycles and magnitude. Sure, springs are designed to go through cycles over their lifetime, but again within design limits. If a pair of springs are subjected to regular excessive cycles, for example, repeatedly driving over a pothole infested road, then they will reach their limit of fatigue earlier and as you say, one event will then be the straw that breaks the camels back. For that same reason, springs would always be replaced in at least pairs.

PaulD86

1,713 posts

133 months

Tuesday 30th April
quotequote all
Windy Miller said:
PaulD86 said:
But seriously, how does a pothole break a spring?
And metal is subject to fatigue if the forces are cycled enough, both in number of cycles and magnitude. Sure, springs are designed to go through cycles over their lifetime, but again within design limits. If a pair of springs are subjected to regular excessive cycles, for example, repeatedly driving over a pothole infested road, then they will reach their limit of fatigue earlier and as you say, one event will then be the straw that breaks the camels back. For that same reason, springs would always be replaced in at least pairs.
So, it wouldn't. As you are have said, repeated wear will weaken and then there will be the straw that breaks the camels back. I know nothing of where the OP has driven their car but they could have driven on roads all over the country (and others), on dirt tracks, on race tracks.... who knows. The point is that you cannot definitively attribute the failure to a single pothole. This is significant due to how the law handles loss and the requirement to demonstrate the cause of loss.

A tyre hitting a pothole is a completely different failure mechanism which can easily be caused by a pothole.

Rusty Old-Banger

4,928 posts

220 months

Tuesday 30th April
quotequote all
PaulD86 said:
Why would going over a pothole cause the failure of an otherwise good condition spring? That's a serious question. Whilst lots of damage to cars can be done by potholes - tyres and wheels in particular - how would a pothole break a spring, a component designed to compress and only able to compress within limits defined by other components? I'll suggest what actually happened is that the spring on your car had a split in the coating, water and salt got in over winter, it weakened and the pothole was merely the straw that broke the camels back.

To answer your question:

Collect evidence - photos of the defect and its location. Photos should show the context of the defect - a close up of a defect which could be anywhere is of sod all use to anyone.
Read the relevant section of the code of practice - Well Managed Highway Infrastructure.
A roads authority - there are 33 in Scotland, 32 are local authorities and one is the Scottish government - has an obligation to inspect its road assets for safety defects, details of which can be found in the above code of practice. The authority (probably council, but trunk roads are Scotsgov) should have a document which outlines how they carry out such inspections which should detail how frequent they are. This will depend on the roads hierarchy (for more see code of practice).
If the roads authority has inspected as per the correct schedule for the road, and has actioned defects found within an appropriate timeframe (see their inspection document) and they have responded appropriately to reports of potholes then the claim is likely to be repudiated as they will have acted reasonably. If they have not inspected and not responded to reports then you have a decent chance of success.

Forget fixmystreet!! It is a waste of space. Report defects to the relevant authority. Most have an online reporting tool which puts the report straight to the relevant system. Fix my street generates an email which is sent to the authority who would then need to input that data into their own system. So other than pointlessly generating extra work and slowing the process it achieves nothing. To be fair councils can sign up to it, and some do, in which case details can go into their reporting system, but it costs a whack and most authorities have concluded it makes more sense to spend that money doing something productive.

Request a claim form from the roads authority. Complete it honestly and accurately using what you have learned from the above documents. The percentage of claims which are exaggerated or inflated is huge so keep it honest. Submit claim and wait for response.

Most authorities will pass info they have plus your claim form to their insurer who will take a view on whether liability would attach if the matter were to be heard in court. In essence, if they think you'd win a claim in court they will pay, if they don't they wont.

If your claim is denied and you think that the authority has not followed their procedure or are in breach of the code of practice then you could submit an FOI for inspection records. This should not be done, as many advise, as a first step. FOIs generate a huge workload and are often totally unnecessary for a claim to be successful. Local authorities are not awash with cash - quite the opposite - and generating lots of FOIs just stretches resources even thinner. You can take the view of the poster above that swamping your local authority with reports is a clever idea, or you can act like a rational human being and interact sensibly.

It's always worth remembering that humans read claims and pothole reports and when they read total nonsense and drivel about how much council tax and road tax someone pays or how inept the council are, they aren't exactly being encouraged to help. Be factual, be polite.

But seriously, how does a pothole break a spring?
As a highways engineer (having done both local authority and HA/HE work), I agree with everything said above.

Craigie

Original Poster:

1,228 posts

186 months

Tuesday 30th April
quotequote all
The issue above highlights why I was asking in the first place whether to bother with the hassle of applying.

My car was driving fine, I hit the pothole, immediately afterwards I felt and heard a rubbing noise and within a hundred yards, my tyre went bang. Spring had broken, lodged a sharp edge in the tyre, and proceeded to do a perfect 360 degree laceration of the inner sidewall.

If asked how to prove that was a result of hitting the pothole then no chance of doing that but all common sense says it was the pothole? But how do you prove the spring was fine beforehand? My last MOT was 4000 miles ago and no advisories?

PaulD86

1,713 posts

133 months

Wednesday 1st May
quotequote all
That's the thing, you say common sense says it was the pothole, but I would suggest that is not at all the case. When your car hits a bump, the tyre compresses first and then as the wheel does not compress the load transfers into the suspension, compressing the shock absorber and spring. On most cars there is something to stop the suspension compressing more than it is designed to - bump stops, for example. The limiting factor on the suspension travel is not normally (ever?) the spring so unless something else fails, it cannot be compressed beyond what it's designed to. Was the pothole so deep that it went through the entire suspension travel? On most cars that would be very deep. What I would suggest is common sense is that the spring was already worn or deteriorated and the pothole was the last straw for it.

A spring will always break sooner or later - that is common sense. And it breaking whilst compressing quickly would be more likely than when under very gentle load. That, however, does not mean that the pothole was the root cause of the failure. Any component will fail eventually, but that does not mean that the road where it fails is responsible. Looking at my daily, there is damaged powdercoat on all the springs. That will be letting in water, dirt and salt. This has never been mentioned on an MoT but I know sooner or later one will fail. It won't be the road that's the cause.

I've reviewed hundreds of insurance claims as part of various work roles and when it comes to people claiming for springs, the number of claims goes up exponentially with the cars age and mileage. I think I've only seen one claim on a low miles, low age car which was a 3 or 4 series. In that case BMW replaced the spring under warranty as they conceded that it should not have broken at that age and mileage. When the manufacturer is happy to pay for such a repair without fight, that tells you that they do not believe a pothole can end the life of an otherwise good condition spring. And as someone who has tried to get BMW to replace things under warranty, if they thought they could have blamed the pothole, you can bet they would have! Incidentally, what type of car were you driving? BMW are by a country mile the worst for spring failures, in my experience, and the design means they have a habit of taking out tyres in the process. This happened to my mums last year as she was pulling out the drive at walking speed. They are appallingly poor quality components.

Windy Miller

186 posts

225 months

Wednesday 1st May
quotequote all
In relation to stresses and strains in materials, there are considerable difference between static loadings and shock loadings. A car sitting stationary, will impart a static loading on the spring(s) resulting from that mysterious force known as gravity. The springs will be compressed a certain amount according to the mass of the car and the characteristics of the spring.

Start to drive the car now and the loadings become more dynamic. Still gentle and result in various compression and extension movements on the spring. That is what it designed to do.

Now go and hit a pothole at speed. The forces on the spring now become at the upper end of dynamic loadings and into shock loadings. A vague example could be a pane of glass in a window. Expose it to a static loading (steady wind) or a dynamic loading (varying wind) and its fine - You can even see it flexing in the wind if the wind is strong enough. The force applied over the whole glass can be considerable. Now, give that bit of glass a shock loading - a hammer should do the trick, and it will shatter or at the very least crack. I said its a vague example, but there are loads of examples that could be used that demonstrate the difference in behaviours between static, dynamic and shock loadings.

Another one would be a 1 tonne SWL (or WLL if you prefer) lifting strop. It will easily suspend 1 tonne and hold it there (static load, force = load mass x g) and whilst the load is being raised (dynamic load, force = (load mass x g) + (load mass x upwards acceleration). All well and good. Now go and drop that 1 tonne load on a long 1 tonne strop. When the slack all takes up, the strop will break. But yet, its a 1 tonne strop in previously good condition with no defects, and only had a 1 tonne load to catch. Shock loading is why it broke.


PaulD86

1,713 posts

133 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
The OP has stated that the broken spring took out the tyre on their vehicle, therefore are you of a view that a spring in otherwise good condition would fail before a tyre when a pothole is hit? To me, this does not seem probable. As previously stated, claims for failed spings are unusual on young or low mileage vehicles. I would suggest that this points towards the obvious conclusion that a good condition spring will cope with rapid compression.

On static vs dynamlic loading - spring failure on static vehicles is common, especially in winter.

Windy Miller

186 posts

225 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
PaulD86 said:
I would suggest that this points towards the obvious conclusion that a good condition spring will cope with rapid compression
In which case, it should be possible to take a new / nearly new car, drive it as fast as the speed limits permit over any pothole of any width and depth, without any failure of any suspension component. And if there is any failure, the manufacturer will gladly stump up under warranty. Good luck with that.....

PaulD86

1,713 posts

133 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
Windy Miller said:
In which case, it should be possible to take a new / nearly new car, drive it as fast as the speed limits permit over any pothole of any width and depth, without any failure of any suspension component. And if there is any failure, the manufacturer will gladly stump up under warranty. Good luck with that.....
As per my earlier post, BMW paid a claim for a spring on a car in such cirumstances (NSL road and pothole). And the branch in question are notoriously difficult.

Windy Miller

186 posts

225 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
Ok, lets agree to disagree on this one. I will not be taking the car and driving it intentionally at potholes just to see if they get replaced under warranty. THough with 305 tyres, it spans many potholes!biglaugh

From my limited legal knowledge (engineering I am more comfortable with....) the "but for" test would suggest that if a spring broke going over a pothole, then the legal test question would be "But for the pothole, would the spring have broken?" Or in other words, "if the pothole were not there, would the spring have broken?"

There were then be 2 burdens of proof.

1. Thats the spring broke on "impact" with the pothole. This dashed nearly suggests that a go pro camera with GPS / timestamp be installed in each wheel arch to show the spring breaking, stamped with teh location.

2. That there was another defect with the spring.

Both are difficult burdens to prove. In the first case, there is no evidence to link it with the pothole. In the latter, by the time the spring is replaced and the claim lodged, the original spring is probably long scrapped. So from a legal perspective, without that GoPro, its a tall order. But what there will very often be is the driver who is able to associate the pothole with the spring breaking. That drivers recall, along with that GoPro, would be enough to say that "if the pothole were not there, would the spring have broken?" and that test would pass.

Right, where can I get 4 GoPros and how on earth can I find space in those wheel arches when they are already populated with 305 section tyres.... biggrin

PaulD86

1,713 posts

133 months

Friday 3rd May
quotequote all
At this point it would probably be fair to say that I have been in court as part of a claim for a spring, so the legal side of this I am reasonably well versed on. The claim failed. You essentially need to prove causation - that's the challenge. I could go on a rollercoaster and have a heart attack, but that does not mean that the rollercoaster is to blame when my heart already had an issue. Teasing out causation can be tricky, but there is a large pool of evidence that spring failure on young/low miles cars is extremely rare but increases significantly with age and (while it varies by manufacturer) mileage.

By some margin, BMW seems to be the most common brand for spring failure followed by VAG brands and in particular Seat (which seems odd when there are fewer of them and there is much VAG component sharing). Vauxhall don't do overly well either. Brands that are rare for spring claims include Ford and Mercedes and most French brands.

Windy Miller

186 posts

225 months

Saturday 4th May
quotequote all
Its a bit like dashcams then I suppose. In years gone by, it was "she said, he said" and teasing causation out of that could be challenging. With dashcams, doorbellcams and everything else, then there is a lot more to go on, though the days of "the camera never lies" seem to be well past....

Strain gauges on suspension components, dashcams with GPS and time stamps, and ride height (or in the case of the OP, tyre shredding) detection would paint a very different picture - Just like dashcams on their own these days can.

Seems that spring claims are a bit like the Not Proven verdict in Scottish Law....

"Yes, of course we understand that a massive shock load on a spring could break it, camel back breaking straw or otherwise. But we don't want to pay out, nor do we want to have to deal with all the potholes on our roads, so we are going to go with the line that you can't prove it conclusively. Maybe it was corrosion, maybe it was cheap Chinese steel, maybe a coronal mass ejection at the exact same time caused weakening of the molecular structure of the steel.... - We rest our case"