Newslink February

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Pothole plague hits 80 motorists a day says RAC
It will come as no surprise to ADIs that
Britain’s ‘pothole plague’ is getting worse –
but new figures released by the RAC has
highlighted just how many motorists it
affects every year.
In 2023 the RAC received call-outs to
pothole-related breakdowns nearly 30,000
times. That’s equivalent to 80 breakdowns a
day and up a third on 2022. The fourth
quarter of 2023 saw 5,153 breakdowns
caused by potholes, the highest for any
October to December period since 2017.
Faults included broken suspension springs,
damaged shocks and distorted wheels.
The RAC says the problem will be getting
worse at the moment as we are in the middle
of ‘pothole season’ – January to March –
when water makes its way into cracks in the
road, freezes and expands, causing surfaces
to deteriorate even more.
Its Pothole Index, which has tracked the
condition of Britain’s roads since 2006, now
stands at 1.70, up from 1.62 in 2022. While
this is nowhere near the all-time high of 3.5
recorded in Q1 2010, at 1.7 the index suggests
drivers are more than one-and-a-half times
as likely to experience pothole damage as
they were 15 years ago.
Simon Williams, RAC head of policy, said:
“The cracks in Britain’s road maintenance
system have once again been embarrassingly
exposed. Potholes are so much more than an
irritation – they are a very serious danger to
all road users which we fear is getting worse.
“Local councils have been cash-strapped
for years due to lower road maintenance
budgets, causing roads across the country to
fall into disrepair and leaving drivers fighting
for compensation when their vehicles are
inevitably damaged.
“Fortunately, the Government has
committed an extra £8.3bn of funding to local
councils over the next 11 years, which we
hope will give squeezed authorities some
certainty of cash to help them plan
consistent longer-term maintenance.
“Now we urge the DfT to lay out clear
guidance as to how this money should be
best used so that councils can actually
improve their roads for the future.”
However, the Local Government
Association admitted that the extra cash “is
not going to fully fix the problem”, with a
number of commentators describing the
cash as a ‘drop in the ocean’. One road
maintenance expert said, “it will take more
than the money put up by Government to
sort out the UK’s crumbling roads. You would
probably need to put a zero on the end of that
figure to do that.”
NEWSLINK n FEBRUARY 2024 09