Pit crashes have already risen by 50% with Britons likely to be hit twice as hard as in 2006, RAC says Achi-News

Car breakdowns due to potholes have already reached 50% this year, a leading car service company has said.

The RAC has warned that Brit drivers are almost twice as likely to suffer pothole breakdowns compared to 2006, when the company first started collecting pothole-related data.

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According to reports by the company, drivers suffered 7,904 pothole breakdowns in the first three months of 2024 as Britain’s roads continue to crumble.

Analysis by the Driving Services Company shows this has been far from a smooth year for the country’s drivers, with the number of pothole-related breakdowns increasing by nine per cent in the past 12 months.

During this period, the RAC recorded 27,205 breakdowns, 2,299 more than the 24,906 incidents it attended between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023.

The company says this is a clear sign that Britain is suffering from a pothole epidemic as roads continue to crumble.

But the RAC believes drivers may have “dodged the ball” in what is usually their worst three months of the year.

According to the company’s experts, milder weather led to a 22% drop in tour booking rates from 10,076 last year to 7,094 in 2024.

During the winter months, sub-zero temperatures typically cause more surface deterioration as water enters cracks in the road, freezes and expands.

In the first three months of 2024, the milder weather meant there were only seven days of frost, compared to the usual average of nine.

This may limit the number of new pits created, the company claims.

The RAC says it does not believe the drop in pothole-related faults – which include damaged shock absorbers, broken suspension springs and warped wheels – is a sign of improved road conditions.

Simon Williams, head of policy at the RAC, said: “While many would rightly say the roads are terrible, we believe they would be far worse if we hadn’t had such a mild winter.

“We feel motorists have dodged the pothole as the lack of common sub-zero temperatures masks the true state of our roads.”

The company says its Potholes Index, which measures the likelihood of suffering one of these warnings, has increased, meaning drivers are even more likely to experience damage now than 12 months ago.

And compared to 2006 when the RAC first started tracking these breakdowns, motorists are now almost twice as likely to experience pothole damage.

“While our data shows that pothole damage to vehicles in the first three months of the year is lower than the same period in 2023, it’s important not to lose sight of the bigger picture and the ongoing sorry state of our roads,” Simon. added

“The analysis clearly shows that drivers are twice as likely to suffer a breakdown due to poor road surfaces than in 2006.

“After all, all the cracks left by years of declining road maintenance budgets cannot be easily filled.

“Although the Government has given councils an extra £8.3bn for road maintenance from scrapping the northern section of HS2, we know this is only enough to renew 5,000 miles of roads – equivalent to just 3% of all England’s local roads.”