We’re sick and tyred of the damage caused by potholes… so let’s mend them ourselves
Councils simply can't afford to fix the potholes without cutting other vital services, so should we simply take to DIY repair jobs to save our roads?
WHEN it was revealed this week that a local council had been ordered to pay a man £10,000 to repair damage caused to his Ferrari by a pothole, many will have thought he was taking the mickey.
Because how in the name of all that’s holy can a small dimple in the road possibly cause damage that costs ten grand to put right?
Well let me assure you, it can . . .
My colleague, James May, once hit a pothole while driving a Volvo through Tanzania in Africa.
It was not particularly deep and he wasn’t going especially fast — as usual — but even so, two expensive low-profile tyres were destroyed.
And the impact caused such severe damage to the rear suspension that a few days later, one of the back wheels actually fell off as he was driving along.
A year later, I was driving through Argentina in a Porsche 928 when I hit a hole in the road.
I was actually going quite quickly at the time and, as a result, the jolt pushed the entire left side of the front suspension out of its mountings and into the car’s complex wiring loom. Which promptly shorted out.
More Motors news and reviews
I managed, after a day, to get the engine running again but most of the Porsche’s electrical systems were so badly damaged that it would unquestionably have been written off.
As it turned out, of course, the car was subsequently confiscated by the Argentinian police after some protesters got it into their heads that the Falkland Islands aren’t actually British.
Obviously, with a Ferrari, things are going to be much worse because this is a company that charges customers a fortune for even the simplest things.
An iPod lead is £580. A cup holder is £2,112.
Yellow stitching on the dashboard is £296 — that’s £296 for some cotton — and a suede-look boot carpet is £1,150.
So, obviously, it’s going to cost £10,000 to replace a damaged wheel and a side airbag after you hit a pothole.
MOST READ IN OPINION
The big question is: What’s to be done?
Councils can’t afford to hand over thousands in compensation every time someone hits a pothole.
And nor can they afford to mend them all, either.
Seriously, we all hate them but we can’t very well have the council say to Mrs Snoggins: “I’m sorry, love, but we are going to spend all your lunch money on mending that hole in the road so you’ll just have to die.”
Happily, I have an idea.
Most home improvement stores sell pothole repair kits for about no money at all.
So why don’t we all just pick one near where we live and mend it ourselves?
AFTER the moron ran amok in London last week, some of the nation’s more hysterical commentators were quick to point out that there are easily accessible websites that demonstrate how a car can be used as a murder weapon.
But if you need an internet guide on how to run someone over, you’re even more idiotic than I first thought.
IT was announced this week that even though lead was banned from petrol many years ago, people living near motorways are still noticeably less intelligent than people who don’t.
Hmmm.
I wonder if the researchers have considered the possibility that people who live near motorways were stupid in the first place?
FINLAND is already well known for its air guitar world championships and now they’ve started a dressage and showjumping competition for people on hobby horses.
Ten thousand people are expected to take part.
Well it beats the traditional pastime up there in the frozen north, which is killing yourself.
Nation's going to the dogs
ALL over the country, various councils have decided that it’s now illegal to take more than four dogs for a walk at the same time.
How can we call this a free country when the local authority has taken interference in our lives to this level.
The news is bad enough for me – I have five dogs – but it’s especially gruesome for the nation’s professional dog walkers, who are already faced with big public liability insurance bills.
If they have to put up their prices, many people will simply leave their dogs at home while they’re at work, which will cause them to be fat and sad.
IT’S been revealed that the people watching BBC1 these days have an average age of 61.
This means that half the licence fee payers are coughing up full whack to fund a range of programmes for the other half who either get a discount or don’t pay at all.
Paps got off lightly
NIGELLA LAWSON’S daughter was ticked off by commentators this week after she gave the finger to some paparazzi.
Well I’m sorry but who is she? What’s she ever done?
Why was anyone taking her photograph?
I think it’s fair to say that if a pap ever tried to get a snap of my eldest daughter, he’d have to spend the next few months trying to get the camera out of his bottom.
I’VE done a fair bit of reading about the consequences of Brexit and as I see it, roughly half the country – which includes me – think it will be a disaster and the other half think it won’t.
Since we have absolutely no idea at present who’s right, because nothing has actually happened, can we all just stop bickering while we wait and see.
IF you’re fat but otherwise reasonably healthy – like me – it has been discovered that three ounces of peanuts a day will help prevent a heart attack.
Presumably this has something to do with the fact that peanuts – as we all know – are high in fat, laced with salt and as often as not drenched in other people’s urine.
A real bones shaker
THIS week, 34 people were arrested in Italy after police uncovered a plot to steal Enzo Ferrari’s remains.
This is a worrying new development because it’s very difficult to prevent someone kidnapping you when you are dead.
You can’t fight and kick and bite. You can’t call the police. You just have to lie there while they put you in a van.
And when you are finally unloaded into a remote basement, there’s literally no chance of escaping.
You just have to lie on the floor, hoping your family pays the ransom.
And that’s a concern because, will they?
Rationally, it would be idiotic to hand over some money to get your grandad’s bones back?
Because it’s just his bones and who cares what happens to them?
The trouble is we do care.
And we would find it distressing if we opened the post one morning to find that the kidnappers had sent us a bit of an ear or a shin.
We may not be prepared to pay as much as if he were alive but most of us would certainly pay something.
Which means that as far-fetched as it may seem, deadnapping could become the next big thing in the world of crime.
Scary.
IN a bid to make cricket more exciting, plans are afoot to introduce games that no longer last for five days.
Because the players keep stopping to have tea.
Hmmm. This, to me, is a bit like trying to make Shakespeare more interesting by launching a Hamlet pop-up picture book.
It wouldn’t work because the basis of Shakespeare, like cricket, is inescapably dull.
