Car Owners With Pothole Damage Usually Out Of Luck
The details differ, but the narrative always goes something like this: The motorist is driving down the road when -- BAM! -- a pothole tries to eat their car. Then comes the discovery of the flat tire, the bent rim or worse.
"We are seeing it all the time," said
"It can be pretty rough."
Pretty rough -- just like the cratered streets and highways in
"I am 45 years old, have been driving since I am 16 and have never bent a rim," she said. "I just couldn't believe a pothole would do that."
She was unable to recoup her expenses from
"You are usually out of luck on these pothole cases," said Bruce S. Zero, an attorney with
Whether the owner of a pothole-damaged vehicle may recover their out-of-pocket expenses from a government varies from state to state and often from jurisdiction to jurisdiction within each state, said
For example, a motorist whose car is damaged when it whacks a pothole on the interstate or another state-maintained highway in
The motorist should not, however, expect to recover any money, he said.
A 1978 state law specifically prohibits
People still try.
From
"We do send them a letter that actually tells them that we do not pay for property damage caused by potholes, but if they want to exercise their right, they are free to do so and file a claim," he said.
Mr. Zero said a motorist might be able to make a better case for reimbursement from a city, township or borough if the municipal government knew or should have known about the offending pothole but failed to make repairs.
"If people have written in and complained about the general condition of the road, sometimes that is sufficient notice for them to have gone out and fixed it," he said.
Although it is responsible for only about 30 miles of roadway,
The complaints typically come in to the
County solicitor
"If we dug a hole and didn't cover it over, we could be on the hook for something like that," he said. "But a naturally opening pothole? It's almost impossible to hold the government responsible for those."
At
"It seems to be a familiar theme -- that it's too much red tape or they are told there is nothing they can do,"
Depending on the type and extent of the coverage, a car owner's auto insurance company might pay a claim for pothole damage.
A motorist who files a damage claim also runs the risk of their insurance rates increasing in the future. If the damage to the car is not severe, filing a claim might not be worth it in the long run,
"It's a double-edged sword," he said.
AAA's
"That's probably the toughest thing," he said. ""What we found in previous research is drivers often do not set aside money for unexpected car problems. When their car is damaged, it can be tough on their finances because they didn't plan for it beforehand."
Contact the writer: [email protected]
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