It has been revealed that more than £3.5 million has been paid out in
compensation for
personal injury on British roads, according to the Department of Regional Development.
The injury claims were filed due to defective roads and pavements in the past five years.
They money forked out includes rewards for damage to vehicles and personal injury. As a result, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of claims filed, due to defective roads.
A spokesperson for the group stated that health and safety was its top priority and it has repaired 200,000 defects last year. However, despite this promise, 492 claims against the service are still unresolved.
In 2004-2005, there were just over 1,000 personal injury claims for the problem, but this shot up to over 1,800 in 2008.
As a result, the statistics have become the main focus of areas to be reformed, by SDLP MLA John Dallat.
Dallat is a former member of the DRD committee at Stormont, and said he believed that if investment was not increased, there could be even more serious consequences.
He blamed a lack of investment in road maintenance for the root of the issue and said this was a “false economy.”
He stated: “The vast majority of these claims are a result of massive cutbacks in the roads budget.
“The folly of it is that while the department is saving money from the cuts, they are then having to pay out major sums of money to people who are injured or whose cars are damaged as a result of bad roads.”
However, a DRD spokesperson said it had recently increased investment in road maintenance: “The three-year budget for the period 2008-11 means that funding for structural maintenance in the next two years will be around £72m and £70m,” the spokesperson said.
“This represents an increase of around 27%, when compared with the initial budget allocation for 2008/9.
“By carrying out inspections and repairs in accordance with our maintenance standards, we are able to ensure that the department is in a good position to defend any compensation claims that may be lodged against it,” they concluded.
Despite this, Dallat is still not convinced that enough is being done to sort out the problem that is driving motorists potty.
“We're not talking about a pothole here and a
pothole there. My understanding is that a lot of these claims are coming out because of roads with major deficiencies causing significant damage to expensive cars,” he said.
“I believe that the lack of money is going to lead to more road deaths. It is logical to presume that bad roads lead to more accidents and that more accidents means more serious injuries and deaths,” he added.
Ankle injury claim
One woman filed a compensation claim, after she broke her ankle when stepping off a path and fell into a pothole on a defected road.
The most common complaints surrounding the potholes are broken bones, bruised bodies, destroyed bikes and flattened car tyres.
A spokesperson for the board of supervisors commented: “Right now we have our staff investigating every funding possibility. We need to find an adequate and consistent source of funding so that we can properly maintain our streets.”
