During a recent trip I was caught out by a pothole big enough to do some fairly hefty suspension damage. I find the relevant council website and report the pothole using their online service so others don’t get got. They returned a form asking me to fill in an incident report detailing where and what it was, and so they can send it to their insurer (wasn’t the plan, but never mind) but on it they’re demanding insurance info from me and details of the occupants addresses (some of which I don’t have), which I’m not comfortable giving to them – I’d not claim on my fully comp insurance for the damage because the increased premium would be higher than the cost of the repairs. Do I bother at all? Do I leave that info off (and lose the chance to recoup my costs that they’ve given me?)

There should be no loss of your no claims discount as the liability for the pothole rests with the council.

However, I hear some councils are trying to wriggle out of their responsibility if they were unaware of the problem pothole prior to the accident, but I think that’s a bit of a cop out. Big holes don’t appear overnight and the onus for frequently surveying the roads rests with them, not the general public.

We have craters which have grown to as big as 3 ft long and ten inches deep here. It doesn’t take long for these to open up, but it would be whole lot cheaper and safer if they filled them in sooner!

I supposes some tree hugging Guardian reader is going to come along and disagree. They will probably blame Margaret Thatcher – their default scapegoat! 😆

Whatever you decide – take pictures of the potholes (dated and with visible means of measurement comparison such as a ruler or dead roadkill) before they fix any holes and if they do fix the holes, note how long it took since you reported it.

I unfortunately can’t take note of them as it’s near enough 2 hours drive from me and happened last month. They can claim to have fixed it all they like but I met the police at the time who saw me having the problem and said they were surprised there were not more people off the road because of it.

Either way I’m not keen on sending my insurance details, so I probably will just leave that blank, though they do need my reg number to check it’s my car, which defeats the purpose.