pot hole on a519 windermere broke both my wheels

jthef

went on ride to windermere the other day and hit some poor road surface and a pothole which had been repaired befor and pinched puntured the front tyre.

checking the bike the next day and both wheels are damaged so took to the bike shop and not repairible so £150 bill to come for new rims and rebuild. he said lucky i stayed on.
whats the best way to claim from the council?
What is the best was to put it etc.
And any local cyclist if you know how long the pot hole has been there please let me know as reported it now after taking some pitures.
link to pothole
http://www.fillthathole.org.uk/hazard/96937/map
I was doing 30+mph and the bump turned off my garmin.
thanks.

nicklouse

Go back take pictures with something to show the size of the hole. A 50p is good. Or a golf ball something of a know size. Send in the pics along with the bill.

Good luck.

jthef

It's an hours drive away.
It was within 1 mile of the end of a74 mile ride.

ugo.santalucia

You have to check if it has been reported. If it has not, then report it yourself and then wait a week. If it does not get filled, then have your wheels repaired and present the bill to the council.
If it has not been reported, they are under no obligation to refund you

dabber

I understand that you can request from the council the history of that piece of road - when it was last inspected, any potholes reported, repair info etc.
I only know of this as my son was a passenger in his gf's car when they hit a pothole and the airbag in his passenger seat exploded, damaging his hearing. As a sound engineer this isn't great for him and he has been unable to work. Fortunately it is now starting to recover and the long term prognosis is probably good.
He has legal cover but they law firm won't act against the council unless the road history report (for which we are still waiting) shows negligence on their part.
btw, it looks like the car may be a write off.

rolf_f

ugo.santalucia wrote:

You have to check if it has been reported. If it has not, then report it yourself and then wait a week. If it does not get filled, then have your wheels repaired and present the bill to the council.
If it has not been reported, they are under no obligation to refund you

This. Happened to me. They fixed the hole in about 4 days!

At the time I assumed the hole had been neglected for some time but as the same hole had to be repaired 3 more times that year I realised that the problem was just the poor quality of repairs rather than repairs not being carried out.

Dabber wrote:

I only know of this as my son was a passenger in his gf's car when they hit a pothole and the airbag in his passenger seat exploded, damaging his hearing. As a sound engineer this isn't great for him and he has been unable to work. Fortunately it is now starting to recover and the long term prognosis is probably good.
He has legal cover but they law firm won't act against the council unless the road history report (for which we are still waiting) shows negligence on their part.
btw, it looks like the car may be a write off.

That's unfortunate - hope he gets better soon. As a matte of interest, where the wheels on the car low profile? So many ordinary hatchbacks now have insanely low profile rims and they never seem appropriate for our road surfaces. My old Saab has a huge amount of sidewall compared to modern cars - it really is like the difference between road and mountain bike tyres!

dabber

Rolf F wrote:

Dabber wrote:

I only know of this as my son was a passenger in his gf's car when they hit a pothole and the airbag in his passenger seat exploded, damaging his hearing. As a sound engineer this isn't great for him and he has been unable to work. Fortunately it is now starting to recover and the long term prognosis is probably good.
He has legal cover but they law firm won't act against the council unless the road history report (for which we are still waiting) shows negligence on their part.
btw, it looks like the car may be a write off.

That's unfortunate - hope he gets better soon. As a matte of interest, where the wheels on the car low profile? So many ordinary hatchbacks now have insanely low profile rims and they never seem appropriate for our road surfaces. My old Saab has a huge amount of sidewall compared to modern cars - it really is like the difference between road and mountain bike tyres!

Thanks Rolf, much appreciated. He had a second hearing test at the hospital yesterday and it looks like he is now regaining the hearing losses he suffered - the incident was a bit over 2 weeks ago.
I don't know the details of the car but i think it is a small Renault (Cleo?) and I don't think it has particularly low profile rims but they won't have been large wheels either.

blablablacksheep

I've had this before but lucky only spoke broke off.

All I can say is repeat what already been said about pothole history report.

It's all about showing that the council if aware of the pothole didn't do everything they could to stop it being dangerous.

If they can prove they did everything within their power to mitigate risks then not much you can do.

lakesluddite

I think I know the stretch of road you mean, it's at the bottom of Bannerigg, and is just as the road inclines again to go up Alice Howe - it's on my drive to work every morning, and I even try to avoid that bit in the car, not to mention the bike!
I think it's been like that a while from memory - it's certainly been a section that has been 'very poor' for ages. Then again, there's plenty of the A591 (not 519) that is like that. There is a section of he hill that comes out of Windermere, right by the Train Station/Booths that is filled in/resurfaced about every three months, as it looks like a spring runs under it and breaks through eventually, especially after a lot of rain (and we certainly get that here). On my cycle commute I avoid the A591 for pretty much all of the ride, by using the back roads, but that's the advantage of local knowledge I suppose.

You do know that the wide path next to the section you mention is a cycle path? Not that the Council can use this as an excuse, but it's in far better nick than the road.

bails1310

I wouldn't hold your breath.

I popped a car tyre on a stretch of road in August, took photos, including the 12 inch ruler that could be placed inside the hole both ways! Reported it to the council same day, hole was filled the following day & I submitted a claim for the £90 tyre.

They've sent me a report c/o AMEY & B'ham City Council with dates/times that they claim was when engineers visited the stretch of road to monitor it and were apparently happy after each visit that it wasn't an issue.

They also claim that just because they filled it the next day, that doesn't admit that they were at fault or that they should have done it earlier, even with my case being reported before it was repaired.

It has been left that should I wish to take legal advise etc etc then I can.

jthef

Thanks lakes Luddite.
That is some of the info i need.
Yea I used that cycle track a lot of the way but jumped on the road for the down hill bit.
I try and avoid cycle tracks a lot as I get too many puntures as had none in 2 years then 2 in 2 weeks on cycle tracks including earlier in the day.
I did plan to oviod that road but got late and followed a cycle track that took me all over the place so in the end jumped on the road to catch the train home. Which I saw leaving from the road while pushing the bike.

jthef

Update.
Their insurance paid out for the cost of the repair of the wheels.
Job Done.
took a while though.

diy

bails1310 wrote:

I wouldn't hold your breath.

I popped a car tyre on a stretch of road in August, took photos, including the 12 inch ruler that could be placed inside the hole both ways! Reported it to the council same day, hole was filled the following day & I submitted a claim for the £90 tyre.

It has been left that should I wish to take legal advise etc etc then I can.

It will only cost you £25 to test their metal (+ hearing fee if goes that far). Maybe try a letter before action with an offer without prejudice to accept a contribution of something less than £90. If you get nowhere then google money claim online and maybe generate a summons notice. For the cost of defending they will probably just pay.

Undertones

diy wrote:

bails1310 wrote:

I wouldn't hold your breath.

I popped a car tyre on a stretch of road in August, took photos, including the 12 inch ruler that could be placed inside the hole both ways! Reported it to the council same day, hole was filled the following day & I submitted a claim for the £90 tyre.

It has been left that should I wish to take legal advise etc etc then I can.

It will only cost you £25 to test their metal (+ hearing fee if goes that far). Maybe try a letter before action with an offer without prejudice to accept a contribution of something less than £90. If you get nowhere then google money claim online and maybe generate a summons notice. For the cost of defending they will probably just pay.

Or they would tell him to get stuffed because it's been a year and a bit since the accident.

Glad the op got his wheels sorted, slow progress though haha.