Potholes drive four times as many vehicles to break down

DRIVERS are nearly four times as likely to suffer a breakdown from hitting a pothole than 12 years ago, an RAC report has found.

The motoring organisation said 14,220 of the callouts it has gone to over the past year were caused by Britain’s crumbling roads.

They included vehicles with damaged shock absorbers, broken suspension springs and bent wheels. It accounted for 1.5 per cent of all callouts, up from 0.4 per cent in 2006 when the RAC began analysing data.

The severe winter has damaged roads, but cash-strapped local authorities say they are £556million short of the funds they need to maintain the roads this year.

RAC chief engineer David Bizley said: ‘Road conditions in many parts of the country are substandard and have been so for quite some time.

‘We cannot simply blame Storm Emma and the Beast from the East, even though they certainly made matters worse.’

Last month the AA blamed crumbling roads and the severe weather for a 15-year high in breakdowns.