The AA said it received 632,000 call outs to vehicles damaged by road defects last year – a 16 per cent increase compared with the previous 12 months.
The AA is part of a new coalition named the Pothole Partnership that will mark National Pothole Day today by sending a five-point plan to central and regional government officials demanding more effective road repairs and full transparency from local authorities on their progress in tackling the backlog of remedial work.
AA president Edmund King said: ‘We often have a vicious circle of: pothole formed; damage caused; pothole patched; pothole reappears with more damage caused. What we need are more permanent repairs.’
The RAC announced it has joined forces with technology company Metricell to encourage drivers to use a new mobile app named Stan to automatically collect data on road conditions via smartphone cameras.
Metricell will share the information it receives with highways authorities.
The AA said it received 632,000 call outs to vehicles damaged by road defects last year – a 16 per cent increase compared with the previous 12 months (Stock image)
Edmund King, the President of the Automobile Association, in 2010
RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: ‘Potholes are so much more than an irritation – they are a very serious danger to all road users, which we fear will only get worse as the weather gets colder during these next few months.’
In November, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to tackle the scourge of potholes with an extra £8.3billion of funding over 11 years for local roads maintenance in England using money saved by scrapping HS2 north of Birmingham.