Man threatens to sue after pothole 'damages' van
Last updated 17:08, Monday, 01 September 2008
An irate businessman has vowed to sue Cumbria County Council after he was offered £100 in compensation for a pot-hole accident which wrecked the wheels of his van and cost him work.
Colin Bamber, 37, described the three-metre-long pothole on the A689 Carlisle to Brampton road as a “deathtrap.”
Though it has now been filled in, Mr Bamber says he has yet to be properly compensated for an accident that cost him £785.
The figure covers the cost of new wheel trims together with earnings lost because Mr Bamber, a furniture restorer, had to take time off work to get his van repaired, he says.
Mr Bamber’s accident happened in the dark as he drove along the A689 at 6.50am on January 24.
Travelling at just under 60mph, his VW Caddy van plunged into the pothole, giving it such a jolt that two of his four wheel rims shattered. The damage meant he could not drive the van.
He believes that he was lucky not to have died in the accident.
“I’m raging about this,” said Mr Bamber, of Turnberry Way, Houghton.
“If I hadn’t had my wits about me I could easily have lost control of the van and gone into the field.
“I’d only bought the wheels on the van on November 26 last year and didn’t get them until the second week in December, so they’d only been on my van for a month.
“I’ve ordered two new ones, but they came in a different colour – so now I’ve got one pair of wheels which is dark and one that’s shiny.
“In the meantime, over the last seven months, I’ve been fobbed off by the council’s insurers Zurich.
“Now they’ve come back and offered me £100 in response to my £785 claim.”
Mr Bamber said he is now so fed up that he is to ask his solicitor to fight the case in court if the county council insurers refuse to make good his losses.
After the accident, and a flood of complaints from angry road users in Cumbria, the authority launched a £1 million pothole repair blitz, filling in 1,516 in a few weeks.
Commenting on Mr Bamber’s legal threat, a council spokeswoman said: “All claims are dealt with by our insurers. The county council has to try and act fairly between council tax players and claimants.
“If at the end of the day, the claimant is not satisfied with the amount of ‘indemnity’ given by the insurers, they have the right to take legal advice and/or court action.”
Apparantly the North West regional assembly has seen fit to distribute 90% of the North Wests road building budget to Manchester. Nice if you live and drive you car in the biggest city in the north west - but what about the rest of us?
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The tarmac used to create these awful speedbums (which are in basically protruded potholes themselves!) why don't they use the materials/labour and most of all, OUR tax money, on filling the holes in. Not making areas of road stick out!
Oh yeah, and this renaissance thing...sort the city out first before trying to do a new project. Priority is the state of the city's roads at present. Then, and only then, should consideration be given to new projects!Seriously - who makes these decisions? Get out! Oh, and shut the door behind you. THANKYOU!Council, give the guy his money, the FULL amount. People with similar claims will just keep coming and coming if it isn't sorted. Would people be coming time and time again for claims if the renassance was to be scrapped? No chance! People will be pleased! Send a letter out to EVERYONE in the city...and that does not mean spending 10 times more on getting contractors to do the work for you - lets face it, you get our tax money ripped off all the time! Find out what PEOPLE want at this moment in time. Can somebody else either support what I am saying or oppose it...Im interested to see the views of others are and why they think that. In particular, what would you spend tax on...repairing the current state of our ciry, or creating the renaissance?Posted by K on 17 September 2008 kl. 00:49