Protyre News
The Depth of the Problem - UK potholes reach four times the depth of the Pacific
By Gareth Vrac
Potholes are a nightmare. You can’t drive five minutes down the road without becoming intimately acquainted with at least one of them.
In 2016, an unimaginable 1,031,787 potholes were reported by drivers says new research from Confused.com.
Combined, the total number of potholes in the UK would reach a depth of 40km – almost four times deeper than the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench (11,000m).
The figures were obtained from local authorities around the country, who were also asked the minimum depth of a road defect to be considered a pothole, and the size of their yearly repair bill.
What counts as a pothole?
You’d think that, given the scale of the problem, there’d be a standard definition on what constitutes a pothole. You’d be mistaken.
Potholes are defined by their depth – otherwise they’re considered to be a ‘carriageway defect’. The issue is that different councils have different depths by which they define a pothole. Most councils use 40mm as the minimum depth.
For reference, that’s about the same size as two 20p coins stacked one on top of the other. Some councils also have a minimum width for potholes. Again, this can vary, but those that do tend to use 300mm as the minimum width.
In total, local authorities had to fork out £3.1m to compensate victims of pothole damage last year with Wiltshire Council having made the biggest payout to victims of pothole damage – over half a million pounds in total. The cost of repair is also something which seems to be more expensive in some areas more than others. Westminster City Council paid an average of £2,400 per pothole in 2016.
Biggest compensation pay-outs
| Local authority | Total compensations (2016) | Number of potholes (2016) |
|---|---|---|
| Wiltshire | £507,546 | 6,803 |
| Surrey | £343,685 | 31,104 |
| Cardiff | £288,025 | 2,928 |
| Hampshire | £152,630 | 12,072 |
| Staffordshire | £117,239 | 11,526 |
To highlight the true scale of the problem, Confused.com has created a scrolling animation that dives deep into the earth’s crust and beyond.
The UK’s pothole issue has not gone unnoticed by motorists. One in three has suffered damage to their vehicle as a result of poor road surfaces with the damage overwhelmingly caused to drivers’ tyres (64%) and their suspension (42%).
Amanda Stretton, motoring editor at Confused.com, says:
“Scrolling to depths of 40km really puts the UK’s pothole problem into perspective. They’re a major bugbear among drivers, not least because of the damage they do to our vehicles – around £3.1m’s worth. The cost of motoring alone is getting more and more expensive, and damage repair is a big contributor to this, as car parts increase in price as well"
Amanda says drivers should report pothole damage to their local council as soon as possible before the problem gets any worse.
