Back in April, out on road ride and hit a patch of road which was like the Grand Canyon. Wrecked my then brand new set of wheels.

Wrote letter to the council and gave details and took pics.

They passed me to their insurance company. Just received a letter with the usual fob off that I have to prove the council were at fault and they did not follow their legal duties regarding inspection and repair.

Anyone done a similar thing? What’s my next move. I’m sure the insurance company has a standard letter they just send out.

Cheers.

Find out what their legal duties are, I suppose.

If they were unaware of the fault and you can’t prove that it didn’t develop ‘overnight’ then they’re not responsible, basically. So you have to show that they knew about it or should have known about it. Does pepipoo have advice for situations like this or is it just parking/speeding fine dodging?

yeah, just do a search on sites like pepipoo for *vehicle” damage due to road condition, don’t be cycle specific as I’m sure there will be more info for cars etc and the same principles will apply.

So you have to show that they knew about it.

Good luck with that. Chances are, even if they did know about it previously, they will miraculously have forgotten about it/lost report.

A friend had CTC insurance cover and following her nasty accident, the solicitor contacted the county council. Apparently the cc are unlikely to want to go to court so it will get settled.

Make sure you have receipts for any bike repairs, components, clothing etc and any out of pocket expenses as a result of their negligence.

Good luck with that. Chances are, even if they did know about it previously, they will miraculously have forgotten about it/lost report.

probably worth a look on fillthathole.org to see if the fault has been reported previously. At least you can see that without being reliant on the very people you’re claiming against!

The council need to show that they have followed their inspection schedule for that section of Highway and have taken remedial action on any defects that fell above intervention level.

You can ask for copies of inspection policy and records for last few years.

http://www.bikeline.co.uk

also make a FOI request for information regarding the councils usual standard of repairing/maintaining the road, also the last 2 inspection reports,and a list of all previous complaints about that stretch of road, and actions taken, and its all free of charge

Cheers. After chatting to others I know that people have been complaining about the road for months and have informed the council.

It’s all a pain, but the wheels were £500 and would quite like them replaced.

I guess I need to get letter writing collect information from the council.

Do I just present the info to the insurer or go to small claims court.

go to a specialist bike insurer claims handler like above.

Speak to your insurance company. You may be able to get somewhere with your home contents insurance.

What topper (no relation) says it spot on. You need to prove that:

A) the council have kept to their planned I section regime
B) if they have, that the defect had been reported
C) if they haven’t then you get paid.
D)if reported, that it has subsequently been inspected or at very least a works order has been passed to their contractor with a specified timescale as to when the repair needed to be completed
E) that this deadline was not met.

All this information is available from the council. A phone call should get you this information. If they are not forthcoming then a Freedom of information request should see you get the info you need.
Generally in my experience, if the council are willing to tell you to stroll on, it’s because they are confident they have met their statutory requirement.

I am genuinely dumbfounded by this thread.

Firstly that the op is blaming someone else for damaging their wheels. Cone on op, it is your fault the wheels are damaged, you chose to use the wheels on a surface you knew to be an issue.

Plus people responding with advice as if this sort of behaviour is normal and acceptable.

Im not trolling, i genuinely cant believe what im reading is considered acceptable.

If a £500 set of wheels are that precious to you, how do you cope riding them knowibgly that they’re going to get worn and battered, which is tge purpose of them really.

What we’ve been seeing for a very long time is those in power taking naff all responsibility for anything. Tell me – what exactly are our taxes and council tax paying for?

I really regret not suing the Council when I came off my bike due to their non-maintenance of roads. Hell, they didn’t even maintain the ‘A’ roads.

I’m up for a riot – anyone wanna join me? This country really is the pits. 😐

Yet another “who can i blame for my own incompetence” thread.

top tip OP open your **** eyes and look where your riding, people like you make me sick.

Tell me – what exactly are our taxes and council tax paying for?

Compensation settlements!

If there is negligence on the part of the local authority then why shouldn’t the op claim. You are perfectly within your rights to do so. That fact that you chose not to us entirely up to you. They have a responsibility to maintain the public highway to a standard. It they don’t they are negligent. They have budgets to spend on repairing the roads but often chose to spend that money on other things. Or just plain don’t spend it at all and in turn lose it all together.

For those who are simply brilliant at riding …

Almost 2 years after my accident I’m still not recovered. The NHS thought it was OK to make me wait 8 months for an operation. What would you do??

I referred to a friend who had a dreadful accident, she lost consciousness and blue light to hospital. That very evening the Council filled in the huge pothole. The local residents had been badgering the Council for ages to get something done about it and it was a popular area with cyclists. It took an accident for that to be done.

I don’t think that’s acceptable and fail to understand why we should tolerate such crap. I got abuse last year for my belief that the Olympics was a waste of money, I still stand by that and believe that the money should have been used elsewhere.

I’m in the mood for a fight so do your best. 😉

people like you make me sick mildly aroused.

FTFY

Gosh there’s some angst tonight. And it ain’t just me. 😀

Its unfortanate your friend getting hurt etc.

You refer “those simply brilliant at riding” but sorry, but if youve not the competence to be in cobtrol of the bike, be it whether conditions are poor, youve got out of your depth or youre having a bad day, i cobsider it your responsibility to identify danger to yourself and others and take immediate actions to minimise said danger even if it means getting off your bike and pushing.

However, accidents do happen, its really unfortanate, but every time you ride a bike or drive, youre taking massive risks and accidents will happen. Its only yourself you can rely on to ensure your safety.

Because its always that simple.

you don’t have to be “brilliant at riding” to avoid a pot hole just aware of your surroundings, if a hole is big enough to have you off you should be able to spot the damn thing and not ride into it.

good job the forestry commission are chopping down all the trees before folk like you start riding into them and making compo claims.

How about the Council failing to cut back trees and foliage?

It’s nothing to do with competence, it’s the responsibility of the local Council to ensure the highways are safe for all users. The road clearly wasn’t otherwise my friend wouldn’t have face-planted.

The other point that should be considered is the amount of money it costs the NHS. My friend has made regular visits to her GP, several visits to the Opthalmic Consultant, several visits to the optician, several visits to the dentist, several visits to the Maxillofacial Consultant, more x-rays etc.

She’s self-employed and couldn’t work, couldn’t drive, couldn’t do very much. Bike trashed as were shoes and clothing.

All this could have been avoided if the Council took responsibility and filled in the large pot hole.

It’s not even remotely the same as hitting a tree on FC land. And there is a difference between seeing a pothole and being able to avoid it. But I can see there are some grumpy people on here this evening so I’m off to bed. Big love.

not grumpy just sick of constant “who can i claim off” threads, if your not paying attention and hit a hole it’s your fault, if you don’t have the bike handling ability to avoid a stationary patch of uneven tarmac you have no business sharing a highway with other road users and pedestrians.

Can you sue your mum for not having eyes that work?
Can you sue yourself for being less than adequate at riding such that you cannot minimise or prevent any damage to yourself or your bicycle as a result of you riding it? I would much prefer that you took that action rather than increase my contribution to the council tax to compensate you for your inadequacies.

deanfbm – Member
I am genuinely dumbfounded by this thread.
Firstly that the op is blaming someone else for damaging their wheels. Cone on op, it is your fault the wheels are damaged, you chose to use the wheels on a surface you knew to be an issue.
Plus people responding with advice as if this sort of behaviour is normal and acceptable.
Im not trolling, i genuinely cant believe what im reading is considered acceptable.
If a £500 set of wheels are that precious to you, how do you cope riding them knowibgly that they’re going to get worn and battered, which is tge purpose of them really.

b45her – Member
Yet another “who can i blame for my own incompetence” thread.
top tip OP open your **** eyes and look where your riding, people like you make me sick.

So it’s all ok for organisations to fail to meet the obligations that we pay them to undertake?

No, it’s not and yet you guys are bashing the OP for wanting to hold them to account? And for his supposed failure to identify the problem ahead of time. Let me guess, when you have a vehicular accident that is someone else’s fault, you don’t claim against them. Instead you pay for your damage yourself and consider it your fault that you chose to drive and were not precognitive. Balls you do. FFS!

In times of recession infrastructure repair is first to be cut, as the tax/rates income isn’t enough to cover all budget needs, road repair has to make way for spending money on other public expenditure. You may be able to afford 500 quid wheels but the council don’t have the money to maintain velodrome flat roads. It’s all well saying council were negligent but if they can’t afford to maintain all the damaged road shouldn’t you recognise that and ride/use appropriate equipment. Ride a fat bike, you get the same exercise after all.

Some potholes aren’t visible until you’re right on top of them and swerving suddenly on the road isn’t usually the best idea. At night they hide in the shadows or they fill with water and pretend to be a puddle. Heavy traffic or bad driving might give no option but through one.

Are £500 wheels fit for purpose riding on public roads (rather than a race course which has been inspected) might be a better question? To have “wrecked” the brand new wheels, what did it do? split the rim?

If they choose to fight it – expect questions about what you knew about the road condition before you set out on a journey on such fragile wheels.

Actually infrastructure repair is one if the things that isn’t cut. It is one of the things that government allocate extra funds to LAs over and above their normal capital budget. You’ve only got to watch the news following a long period of bad weather to see the announcements of this. The fact that some authorities are not structured well enough to inspect and repair their carriageway is not the op’s fault. Maintaining a crumbling infrastructure is a key responsibility of and authorities highways department. Poor road surfaces create a dangerous environment for all vulnerable road users and the longer you leave them to deteriorate the more costly the repair will be. The tiny proportion of claims that are made to authorities is nothing compared to amount of money that authorities waste or lose through both financial and logistical mismanagement of their highways assets and funding.

Good luck, keep pressing, but don’t hold your breath.

We had two tyres written off on our car by a small deep pothole which was full of water so just looked like a puddle. We pursued council with assistance of AA and got ZERO. The council’s obligation is to inspect the road once a year, so if pothole has been there less than a year they are in the clear. This is one reason why I now call the council every time I see a new pothole, once they’ve been informed they are obliged to do something about it. We have a persistent pothole at the top of our road and they Fix it every two months as we keep calling, the guy who fixed it last told me the underlying road construction is so poor it will just keep coming back. It’s a scam and a crime given the amount of tax we all pay.

Thanks to those with constructive comments.

For the record I’m regarded as a pretty good bike handler. Ride over 200 miles a week race and time trial on a weekly basis. Was travelling at 52mph when I hit the aforementioned pothole after swerving to avoid the other 3 in the middle of the road. Not that I have to justify myself to numpties that probably couldn’t fix a puncture with a tube of tyre foam.

The road in question has been in that contrition for over a year according to locals who I spoke to, as far as I’m concerned the LA has a duty of care to provide a road surface that is suitable for all road users. End of.

as far as I’m concerned the LA has a duty of care to provide a road surface that is suitable for all road users. End of.

They do but in spite of the occasional media stories you see about compensation (and the underlying tone of a lot of this thread mentioning “compensation culture”), councils are only too aware of exactly what their remit is and how to do everything possible to stop compensation claims.

Believe it or not (in spite of the general public view that councils roll over and give out thousands every time something like this happens), it’s very difficult to get anything out of them for this kind of thing.

had a similar experience in surbiton, surrey a couple of years ago whilst on the way to work 9am on a Sunday morning

came up to a “T” junction to turn right, slowed down and was suddenly thrown over the bars into the main road. thank god no traffic was coming

left bloodied and bruised (ripped shorts and jersey), and bike had damage (bent front wheel, ripped saddle, ripped bar tape, etc.)

managed to recover my wits and inspected the road. Found a deep “trough” in the tarmac where buses had been braking for the junction. When I say deep it was approx 5″ deep, about 4″ across and 4 feet long. Very hard to see as there was a road marking in front of this trough which being tarmac blended with the road

went back with a friend, took a camera and tape measure to photograph to scale this defect. Also took photos of all injuries, damage to bike and visited GP for check up.

At the time I was an experienced (former professional) freeride mountain biker and also road cyclist, so not a usual “user error”

contacted the local council, who denied all responsibility.

took it up with a local cycle club who had complained to the same council on a number of occasions about this “defect”; they put me onto a “no win, no fee” accident claims company.

they were given the run around by the council for 6 months with no result, as the council claimed they had “lost” any records of the cycle club’s complaints, someone vaguely remembered the complaints (phone calls and posted letters) but no written records could be found.

OP I’m doing something similar, re cycle path damage. Basically the LA has to show they have a reasonable inspection regime, that they follow it, and make necessary repairs.

I got flamed by superheroes too, though I don’t think poly joined in – he seems to have made an ass of you and me re your wheels’ fragility, though I’m not sure how much of a cyclist he is.

I would say…52mph…might be best not to mention that in any claim.

To be fair the speed limit is 60 on the road. 😀