How to make your 25th wedding anniversary memorable for all the wrong reasons: spend 45 minutes in a car disabled by a pothole, waiting to be rescued.
Travelling at 40mph in a BMW i5, I had plenty of time to react to the tapestry of tarmac ahead. Possibly too much time. If I aimed to the left of the approaching pothole I’d be lined up perfectly for its cousin a few metres farther along the road. Go right and I’d be in the oncoming lane. Right it was. Then oncoming lights made me change my mind – a fraction too late.
I’ve hit potholes before (who hasn’t?) and the sickening impact has reverberated through the tyre, wheel, suspension, mounting points and into the car’s interior. But this time was different.
The BMW’s interior is as well insulated as you’d expect but even so the bang made both of us jump with shock. I swore, made sure we avoided the next pothole and then my heart sank as the orange box on the instrument panel informed me: “Tyre pressure low. Stop carefully.” Cue more cursing.
I parked in a layby. Although I was about 150 metres from the pothole, the tyre was already flapping like very flat tyres do. This wasn’t low tyre pressure; this was no tyre pressure.
P-Day: impact +5 mins
As with virtually all modern cars, the i5 has no spare wheel. Instead, there’s a compressor with sealant foam. As we were only two miles from home, I thought it worth a try.
That was five minutes wasted. Pumping the foam into the tyre merely indicated the culprit, a 20p coin-sized gash in the sidewall. As liquid oozed from the rip, the pressure dial on the compressor remained stubbornly unmoving.
Plan B was more productive. A single tap on the i5’s infotainment screen connected me with BMW Assistance. The call handler was very supportive and since it was 9pm on a Wednesday, it wasn’t exactly peak breakdown time.
Ever glass half full, Mrs F remarked that at least we’d already eaten and it wasn’t raining. I was more concerned with how they were going to recover two and a quarter tons of executive EV.
P-Day: impact +45 mins
I shouldn’t have worried. Clive from BMW’s contractor arrived swiftly with a low-loader and gingerly drove the i5 up the ramps and onto the truck. Clive works the night shift – 4pm to 3am – and performs around 10 rescues each night.
He told me: “At the moment I reckon on average four of my night’s rescues are pothole-related. Last night two of the four lost two tyres to their pothole, so you’ve got off lightly.” In one respect, his remarks confirmed it could have been a lot worse. In another, they were quite depressing.
P-Day +1: report
I returned to the scene the following day with a tape measure. In daylight I didn’t feel so bad for spotting it late. It was long, thin and oriented in the direction of the carriageway so difficult to spy at night, even with the latest headlight technology.
The RAC has given names for different kinds of pothole. In its terminology, this was a classic sniper. Its length at 1,400mm was quietly impressive but its most distinctive feature was its 180mm depth. It was like looking at geological stratum dating back decades.
Reporting it on the West Sussex Highways (WSH) website was straightforward; for pinpoint accuracy, I’d taken the hole’s What3Words coordinates straight after hitting it.
I then looked at claiming compensation. All I can say is, they don’t make it easy. Before you start, they warn: “Be aware that Section 58 of the Highways Act 1980 allows us a defence if we can show that reasonable steps were taken to maintain the highway. This includes inspections and repairs being carried out as planned.”
Every step after that when they ask for basic information is followed by the forbidding sentence: “If not, we will be unable to process your claim.” After some discussion with BMW, which owns the car, we elected not to pursue this course of action.
P-Day+2: response
I wasn’t surprised when the email I received from WSH said: “Closed. Existing job with contractor.” That meant I wasn’t the first to report this particular hazard.
But I was rather taken aback by the note’s vagueness. “Depending on the severity of the defect it will be repaired within two hours, 24 hours, five working days or 28 working days from inspection.”
When I respectfully pointed out to WSH that there’s quite a difference between two hours and 28 working days, a spokesman answered: “We aim to deal with all repairs within 28 days: this can be challenging with the high number currently on our highway network, but higher-risk potholes will be dealt with sooner than 28 days.”
P-Day+5: still there
It wasn’t difficult to spot that the offending pothole remained a threat. Cars were either going to the left or right of the pothole and then jinking around its cousin along the road. Bang goes the bold WSH claim: “We repair potholes greater than 100mm deep and 150mm wide on all roads within five working days.”
P-Day +8: still no action
More than a week after my puncture, the pothole was still there. West Sussex Highways says it has between 14 and 19 repair teams working on its roads but added: “We are looking to bring in more contractors to bolster these numbers.” Judging by its response time to this pothole, it needs to.
P-Day +14: job done?
At some point between one and two weeks after I hit the pothole, it was filled in. Or at least part of it was. Looking more closely, it had simply had a bit of tarmac lobbed in and stamped down; the kind of workmanship you’d expect to see vilified on Rogue Traders. By the time you read this, it will probably have opened up and be costing drivers time and money once again.
What are your experiences of potholes damaging your car? What was the extent of the damage and how much did it cost to repair? Let us know in the comments below
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
