potholes13. But this quarter was when the whole country was locked down because of Covid so the number would not be representative. There is also data showing that between 2018 and 2022 451 people were killed or seriously injured because of potholes14 of whom just under half were cyclists. The National Accident Helpline claims 15% of cycling accidents are due to potholes15. Data from India shows an even bigger impact on accidents16 suggesting that as the UK’s road conditions get closer to those in emerging economies, the impact on accidents will rise. Applying official valuations to the damage from accidents and scaling up from the 2020 estimate suggests a likely human cost of £0.2 billion per annum from pothole related accidents, deaths and injuries. In addition local authorities in England have paid out £22.7 million in compensation for pothole related damage to vehicles in 2023. But most claims for pothole related damage are refused. The RAC points out that ‘the chances of making a successful claim for pothole compensation are very limited, as 76% (13) of the 17 councils that paid drivers any compensation for pothole damage refused more than three-quarters of the claims they received in 2023’17. There appear to be no UK based studies on the impact of potholes on driver behaviour. But there are some international studies, notably a dissertation in the civil engineering department of the University of Southern Queensland18 and an article in Applied Sciences19. There is also an article20 that directly estimates the impact on speed for potholed segments. Translating engineering into economics is even harder than translating economics into English but what these studies appear to be saying is: that speeds are reduced by 55% over a 100 metre segment of potholed roads compared with a road with no potholes and environmental emissions are boosted by 2.9% over the segment. The RAC data claims 6 potholes per mile for the million estimated potholes in England. As potholes tend to be clustered rather than evenly distributed, our estimates assume that this means 20% of segments of non motorway road are impacted by potholes. Using the DTp 13 https://www.national-accident-helpline.co.uk/news/post/potholes-uk-serious-and-dangerousproblem 14 https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-12757963/Potholes-kill-18-Britons-five-yearperiod.html 15 https://www.national-accident-helpline.co.uk/news/post/potholes-uk-serious-and-dangerousproblem 16 Kerala News, 1481 Deaths, 3103 Injured: Pothole-Related Accidents on the Rise, Says Report. Available online: https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/1-481-dead-3-103-injured-union-govt-reportshows-pothole-related-accidents-on-increase-1.8187782 (accessed on 11 May 2023). 17 https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/state-of-the-roads/council-pothole-compensation-claims-doublein-a-year/ 18 The Effect of Road Roughness on Traffic Speed and Road Safety A dissertation submitted by Miss Bernie-Anne King 19 Evaluating the Effect of Road Surface Potholes Using a Microscopic Traffic Model by Faryal Ali, Zawar Hussain Khan, Khurram Shehzad Khattak, Thomas Aaron Gulliver https://www.mdpi.com/20763417/13/15/8677 20 Setyawan, A. and Kusdiantoro, I., 2015. The effect of pavement condition on vehicle speeds and motor vehicles emissions. Procedia Engineering, 125, pp.424-430.
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