Accidents Caused By Bad Road Surfaces

Many accidents occur when drivers are unaware of the dangers or poor road surface, which are often heightened in bad weather conditions. A number of roads are prone to icing during the winter months, so it is the government’s duty to ensure that adequate signage exists to warn drivers of the potential risks.

Poor road surfaces:

Most people are aware of bad roads on their area, however if you are new to the roads you need to take extra precautions and look out for signs indicating poor road surface.

These roads may be known as accident black spots or may be common for causing unavoidable delays to your journey. In some cases, the local council can be held responsible for accidents if it's believed the road surface is to blame. If there are large potholes in the road that cause damage to your vehicle or result in your swerving to miss them and hitting another vehicle, you may be able to make a claim against the local council for poor road surfaces.

Motorists have some level of control over drinking recklessly, while impaired and while distracted there is little they can do about the state of the roads. Weather is also something which is out of our control, and winter is undoubtedly the most dangerous time of the year for motorists, mainly in the month of January.

Even though there are millions of pounds spent every year on improving the road conditions throughout the UK, there are still numerous accidents that could have been avoided. With roads being man-made it means that human errors occur- resulting in design flaws or constructional faults which in turn contribute to numerous accidents every year.

When you hear of a road traffic accident you automatically think of a vehicle collision. Poor road conditions amount for a high percentage of road traffic accidents each year including deaths. Adverse weather conditions make driving dangerous. It also makes roads sometimes virtually impassable to drive along. The weather causes all sorts of wear and tear to road surfaces, by wiping away road markings and wearing away the top layer of the road that helps with the traction of tyres.

Road Surface Awareness:

A variety of methods are continually being developed that try to improve road conditions, car safety and technology to help combat unsafe roads and drivers. Through government sponsored initiatives, community involvement and business development, hopefully the numbers who are injured in road accidents will fall, for both passengers and drivers.

On low risk sites, making up a substantial proportion of the roads, there is a small increase of 5-10% in the risk of a wet skidding accident occurring.

On high stress sites, which make up 10% of the total roads, there is a much larger increase of about 50% in the risk of a wet skidding accident occurring.

Despite record levels of investment by the council in recent years, there is still a need for technologies to be developed by local authorities, to be better equipped with the means, to quantify the risk that these surfaces may pose to the driver and develop strategies to alert them to it.

This will minimise motorists who are claiming compensation from the council for damage caused to their vehicles by potholes and other equally as dangerous road surfaces.