Pothole damage claim in Kilkenny: what to do and how to claim

What pothole damage looks like

The tyre takes the first hit. A hard edge pinches the sidewall against the wheel rim, and you either get an immediate burst or a bulge in the sidewall that goes a few days later at speed. A bulge is not something to drive on. The wheel is next: alloys crack or buckle, steel wheels bend. A buckled wheel shows up as a shake through the steering at a particular speed, or a slow leak that you keep topping up.

Behind those come the parts you cannot see from the kerb. A deep pothole at 80 km/h can knock the tracking out, so the car pulls to one side and the steering wheel sits off centre. It can bend a lower suspension arm, damage a ball joint or blow a shock absorber. On a really deep one, the sump, the exhaust or the underside of the bumper takes the knock. Some of this only shows up a week later as a clunk over bumps or a tyre wearing on one edge, so if the impact was bad get it looked at even if the tyre survived.

What to do at the time

If a claim is ever going to work, the evidence is gathered at the roadside, not the following week. Pull in safely first, hazards on and a high visibility vest if you are getting out on a busy road. Then work through this list before you ring anyone.

• Photograph the pothole with something in it for scale: a shoe, a water bottle, a tyre gauge. Take it from a few angles, including one that shows where it sits in the lane and one from further back that shows the road
• Photograph the damage to the tyre, the wheel and anything else you can see
• Note the road number or name, the townland if you know it, and the Eircode of the nearest house. On a phone, a map pin or a what3words address does the same job
• Note the time, the weather and the light. A pothole full of water at dusk is a different case to one in dry daylight
• Look for signs the hole has been patched before. Fresh tar around the edges or a sunken square of older repair matters a lot later
• If anyone stopped to help or had the same damage, take a name and number
• Keep the damaged tyre and wheel. Tell the tyre shop not to bin them until the claim is finished

How to report a pothole to Kilkenny County Council

Kilkenny County Council has an online Report it service on kilkennycoco.ie where you can log a road defect with a location and a photo. The Roads General Office at County Hall on John Street can also be reached on 056 779 4060 or roads@kilkennycoco.ie during office hours, Monday to Friday, and the main council line is 056 779 4000. Give the road, the townland or Eircode, which direction you were travelling and a photo if the form allows it.

Report the pothole even if you have no intention of claiming. It protects the next driver, and if you do claim later, the fact that the council had been told about the hole, and when, is the single thing most likely to help you. Keep a screenshot or a copy of the email with the date on it.

One exception: the M9 is a motorway run by Transport Infrastructure Ireland, not the county council. For a hazard on the motorway itself ring the Motorway Traffic Control Centre on 0818 715 100.

How a pothole damage claim against the council works

Write to the council setting out what happened, where and when, with your photos, the repair invoices and your contact details. Councils in Ireland are insured through Irish Public Bodies Mutual Insurance, usually called IPB, and the claim is normally passed to them. IPB will typically send a form or a link to upload the photos, the location and the invoices, and then assess it.

This is where expectations need managing. The general position in Irish law is that a council is not liable simply because a road has fallen into disrepair. That is sometimes called the nonfeasance rule. Where councils have been found liable is where they did work badly, left a hazard behind after repairs, or otherwise created the problem rather than just failing to fix it. In practice that means a claim has a much better chance where the pothole had been patched and the patch failed, where roadworks left the hole, or where the council had been told about it well before you hit it.

Figures released under Freedom of Information show that Irish councils do pay out on pothole claims every year, often without admitting liability and with a deduction for the wear already on the tyre. The totals for Kilkenny have been small. A lot of claims are refused. The worst that happens is a letter saying no, so for a wheel and a tyre it is worth the hour it takes. For serious suspension damage or any injury, talk to a solicitor early, because there are time limits on claims and the injury limits are short.

What a recovery invoice and a tyre report add to a claim

An insurer looking at a claim wants to know that the damage happened where and when you say it did, and that it was caused by an impact rather than wear. Two pieces of paper do most of that work. The first is the recovery invoice. When Kilkenny Recovery Truck collects a car with a pothole burst tyre, the invoice records the date, the time, where the car was collected, its condition and where it went. Ask for the location to be written on it and we will. We also photograph the car as we load it, and those photos are yours if you need them.

The second is a short report from the tyre shop or garage that fixed the car. It should describe the damage, say that it is consistent with a sharp impact such as a pothole, and show the cost of the replacement. A photo of the pinch mark on the sidewall or the crack in the alloy is worth having. Keep all of it together with your own roadside photos and send the lot in one go.

Keeping it in proportion

A tyre is typically somewhere between 80 and 200 euro, an alloy wheel repair or replacement a good deal more, and a claim can take weeks or months. If your car has comprehensive insurance the damage is usually covered, but you will pay the excess and it may affect your no claims bonus, so a single tyre is rarely worth claiming on your own policy. Weigh the cost of the repair against the time, make the report either way, and if the council pays, treat it as a bonus rather than a certainty.

If the pothole has left you at the side of the road with a tyre you cannot drive on, we can change the spare at the roadside or recover the car on the flatbed to the tyre shop of your choice. Ring 087 288 2280 and the price is agreed before the truck moves.