Fighting the Pothole Battle

Potholes are a headache for local authorities and a source of stress and heartache for motorists.

This week news was released that the Department of Transport’s Pothole Action Fund is said to be providing grants of £50 million to repair almost a million potholes over the next 12 months, and the South East is getting £8.3 million of this grant to help repair our local roads.

 This will be welcome news for motorists as the cost of potholes to now runs to £2.8 billion every year, with authorities having to pay out more than £30 million in compensation claims.

Potholes can cause a lot of damage to a vehicle. Punctures are common, and they will also knock out your tracking, but some potholes are so deep they can cause damage to axles and even suspension failure.

Ford clearly don’t think the local authorities will ever catch up on the backlog as they have recently launched the new Ford Fusion V6 Sport which can detect potholes and sends signals to the front shocks to stop the wheel from falling into the hole with so much force. Here is a video which shows how the Ford Fusion V6 Sport tackles the pothole issue .

If you would like to report a pothole that you avoid on your daily commute, then you can log its location on https://www.gov.uk/report-pothole Hopefully it will then be on the list to be repaired when the next grant cheque comes through!

Foster & Heanes is a family run garage near Fleet in Hampshire. If you would like further information on having your car repaired following pothole damage, please call 01252 615657 or visit www.fosterandheanesltd.co.uk