Municipalities avoid claims for compensation by pleading ignorance, says RAC

Municipalities increasingly claim that they knew nothing about it potholes to prevent drivers from having to pay compensation for damage to their vehicles.

Research from the RAC shows that local authorities used the excuse to reject seven out of 10 compensation claims in 2023, compared to 35 percent the year before.

Britain is facing a growing pothole crisis, with the one million craters reported on the country’s roads last year representing a post-pandemic high.

The Government has pledged to repair the same number of potholes every year to combat the crisis and announced an additional £500 million in funding for local road maintenance in last month’s budget.

Municipalities do not have to compensate motorists for damage caused to their cars by potholes if they were not aware of the existence of the defect.

In 2022, freedom of information data obtained by the RAC from nine councils showed that 2,252 (35 percent) of the 6,427 claims they refused that year were due to local authorities not being aware of the existence of the pit.

But in 2023, the reason was used to deny 6,028 (74 percent) of 8,172 denied claims, an increase of 167 percent.