The worst motorways and major roads in England have been revealed with the 50 biggest pothole payouts totalling £660,000.
The single biggest payout was due to personal injury after an incident in 2017 which led to one motorist walking away with £280,015.
It took place on the A45, which runs east from Birmingham, past the NEC, and bypassing Coventry and Rugby before merging with the M45.
One driver hit a pothole and was injured so badly that they were awarded over a quarter of a million pounds in damages.
It isn’t clear what injury they suffered.
Such are the scourge of potholes up and down the UK, that as well as costing National Highways England hundreds of thousands of pounds, Brits are turning to increasingly creative measures to highlight them - in hopes of getting them fixed.
Have you been affected by dangerous potholes or received a payout? Email webnews@mirror.co.uk
The shocking figures can be exclusively revealed by The Mirror, obtained via an FOI to National Highways England, who monitor the motorways and major roads.
The next biggest payout was on the A120, which runs between Puckeridge in Hertfordshire and Harwich in Essex, and was also a personal injury compensation of £49,000 after an incident in 2014.
The A120 was a frequent offender for bad potholes and registered around £75k in paid damages.
All of the top 12 payouts were due to personal injury, with the biggest vehicle damage compensation claim being £9,797.
Such was the damage of the pothole to their car that they won almost £10k.
The M6, being the country’s largest motorway, was understandably responsible for a large number of the pothole payouts.
The fourth and fifth biggest payouts, £20,000 and £16,306 respectively, were just two of thirteen compensation claims made after hitting potholes on the M6.
In total almost £78,000 was paid out due to potholes along the road, with the southbound routes seemingly having more dangerous holes, but the northbound one having the single worst one along the road.
The A2 was another particularly bad offender, with a notably bad spot at Gravesend that has led to thousands being paid out.
Top ten biggest pothole payouts
- A45 - £280,015
- A120 - £49,000
- A23 - £26,775
- M6 Northbound - £20,000
- M6 - £16,306
- Non trunk road - £13,465
- A2 - £12,204
- M60 - £11,654
- M20 - £11,000
- A47 - £11,000
Notable hotspot areas for vehicle damage were the Tamworth junction, southbound on the A5 which saw one motorist claim almost £6k in damages, and the Wansford junction of the A47, which saw just over £2k paid up for vehicle damage.
One of the most recent successful claims stemmed from an incident last year on the M62 eastbound which led to a £3,841 payout.
As Brits get sick of the state of their roads, increasingly locals are getting more and more creative in how they deal with them.
Villages in North Staffordshire grew so sick of one massive car-wrecking pothole that they used rubber ducks to highlight just how big it is.
The rubber ducks have been put there by Elmwood Drive residents, who have been living with the pothole in Blythe Bridge for months.
Tim Webb, a road-safety enthusiast, is using toys to turn potholes into imaginary scenes, to force councils to pay attention to them.
Waking up early, he's created many scenes including his Led Zeppelin-inspired "Hole Lotta Love" where a Playmobil rock band performs in front of a mini amp and speakers inside a pothole.
His Facebook post featuring the photograph read: “What could be a Ground Breaking Tour, the Rolling Holes hit the road.
Meanwhile Mark Morell took an alternative approach.
Equally sick and tired of the states of his areas roads, he started to cook pot noodles in the pot holes.
He teemed up with the noodle brand to urge the Government into fixing Britain’s broken roads.
He said: "Since nothing fills a hole like a Pot Noodle, who better to team up with to highlight the ridiculous state of the UK’s roads?"
National Highways Executive Director for Operations Duncan Smith said: “We know that good quality roads are important to the millions of drivers that use our network each day. Safety is also our primary concern and we set stringent standards for pothole repairs on our roads.
“Since April 2015, we have resurfaced nearly 9,000 lane miles of our network. Typically, we resurface an estimated 1,200 miles of road every year.
“We regularly inspect our roads to help reduce the potential for potholes to form and we are meeting national targets designed to ensure our road surfaces are kept in a good condition.”
