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Badly Mended Potholes Creating Bigger Hazard For Road Users
Tue, 27 Apr 2010

The safety of road users is being threatened by hastily repaired potholes, motoring and cyclists’ organisations have warned.

Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been spent by local councils’ on filling in potholes, many of which were caused by the harsh winter weather.

But road and cycle groups claim the road safety problem is being made worse by hasty repairs, with many potholes being over-filled and turned into mounds, creating a bigger obstacle for road users.

Andrew Howard, head of road safety at the AA, said: "We are seeing this problem all the time, in all parts of the country. It affects how you drive because there is a big hump in the road. Drivers will often swerve to avoid these humps and that can be very dangerous."

"We are seeing more and more potholes and the councils are under pressure to do the repairs in a hurry."

"Once the pothole has been repaired, they should subject it to a more thorough rolling to flatten it out. The cure is for the councils to rebuild the roads, but they can't afford to do that."

Charlie Lloyd, spokesman for the London Cycling Campaign, added: "Poor road surfaces are a big hazard for cyclists and badly mended potholes don't make it any easier."

In 2009, around £100 million was spent on patching up 1.4 million potholes on roads in England and Wales, while an extra £30million was paid out in compensation to road users and pedestrians injured by poor road surfaces.

The cost of repairs for this year is expected to be even greater with more than 1.6million potholes reported.
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