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Pothole Patrol Busy as Ever in Lockdown

23 July 2020

Given that over the past four months our roads have seen a 60% reduction in the volume of traffic, the breakdown-due-to-potholes percentage statistics are exceptionally worrying. This is because the RAC has reported that during the period between the beginning of April 2020 and the end of June 2020, just a three-month period, they were called out to 1,766 incidents in which drivers had “fallen foul of potholes”, which is virtually the same as it was the year before.

In most cases, a nasty run-in with a pothole can damage shock absorbers, suspension springs or wheels. The RAC have said that in the first quarter of the year, incidents such as these, of which there were 3,426, made up 1.6% of all of their breakdown call outs.                                                                                   

The RAC tracks the likelihood of a motorist to breakdown by hitting a pothole using their Pothole Index, which has seen a gradual improvement, with small periodic spikes, since it peaked back in 2010.

A Freedom of Information request by MoneySuperMarket back in 2019 revealed that Nottinghamshire was, at the time, the worst offender for poor road quality, with a reported 253,920 potholes. Local authorities in Devon recorded 147,779, putting them at a close second, and Kirklees came in at third with 135,405 potholes.

See here for the worst offending regions.

The RAC’s head of roads policy, Nicholas Lyes, said that “On the surface, these statistics appear encouraging because they make it seem as though the quality of our roads hasn’t worsened, but when you consider how few vehicles were on the road, they are a real cause for concern. We would have hoped to have seen a far bigger drop in the share of pothole-related breakdowns than we would do normally at this time of year, but instead it was just the same as usual.”

We at Marshall Leasing are pleased to offer servicing and emergency breakdown and recovery to our fleet customers. If you would like to have the services of an award-winning fleet management company, who can advise you on all aspects of safety management, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01480 414541.

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