Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 11:00 pm Post subject: Damage to your car while driving on public roads...
having just read the post on noise laws i decided to start a separate thread as opposed to hi-jacking.
so how many of us here with our 18-20 inch rims have driven along the road and "bang" you drive over something with a jarring force that makes you slow down and peer into the rear view mirror to find out "what the hell was that?". i am guess 98% of us here. most days its a filled in pot holes or a section cut and refilled for god knows what. sometimes its a poorly installed drain cover that manages to clip your $3000+ rims each time you drive down that road. or wet asphalt left to flick rocks and blue metal against your $15000 paint job done 2 weeks ago. now think to yourself if you were waiting beside the road in traffic and threw a rock or a can onto the road and a car drove over it and it smashed either a window or a huge dent...who would pay? a bit of an extreme example but i think most of you get my point. we pay billion of dollars every year in taxes to maintain our roads systems. ours are somewhat shocking for what we pay yearly to drive on them and yet they are still quite bad.
so in short, who should pay for damages inflicted onto your car whilst driving on public roads? who should foot the bill? i refuse to accept it as the cost of owning a car. should the contractors who are used pay? or the state government? your insurance company, who eventually slug you for it..?
i am certain we have all been caught out by this and are left fuming when realizing a cracked/ chipped rim or scraped to hell underbody or the annoying asphalt that stains the wheel arches. sure you should always watch where your driving but it is starting to become an obstacle course on our roads out there.
on another note this pertains to people who edge the lawn whilst cars are driving past and flick stones and other debris into traffic. i do beleive there should be a duty of care in place for such things. however its always different when they are the ones in the cars.
On the topic of due care whilst cutting grass. My lancer has nice little pock marks from a whipper snipper throwing rocks up all up the passenger side and because its black sticks out like dog stuff. The companies response? Prove it.
Yes, it can give you the shits when it happens and I've had it happen also. You can write to the council of the area and they can offer to pay for the repairs, you will need to provide evidence and quotes etc for them however.
As much as it sucks.. it's part and parcel for driving... Would your vehicle have reacted in the same way had you had factory sized wheels and tyres fitted? Was it the councils decision or recommendation you fit tyres/wheels that will increase the effect of hitting a pothole or the like?
Would you be happy shelling out another few $100's a year to cover the insurance the council etc would need to take out to cover 'responsibility' for damage to your vehicle? Would you also be happy to have to pay increased premiums due to people who abuse the system also.
As for duty of care when mowing lawns. I know that I edge my lawn when cars are parked on front of my place. I'm as curteous as I can be about it (slow the weed eater down and angle grass as much as I can away from vechiles), but more often then not in heavily parked in areas you don't have the opportunity to wait for no vehicles. _________________
Ideally we should be able to put whatever we want on our cars and drive where ever we want without fear of damage occurring on public roads. apart from the low-life scum human element of vandalizing cars, that should be the only element of threat when driving on public roads. the decision to molest the roads deeming a smoothe section of asphalt and turning into a garrish graded coarse area without sufficient signage and no suggested reduced limit is negligent. i think the councils themselves should foot the bill in my opinion and no further cost borne by the public. this happens alot in perth and its openly accepted which is ridiculous. i think its good taxpayer money thrown after bad.
I should be able to fit exceedingly large rims to my car and then speed over a speedbump, damage my rims and the council should pay for it? _________________
BMWTurbo...i think your turning this post around mate. dont you think someone with huge rims be quite careful over speed humps. dont take this out of context. give members here the respect that they are smarter than what your implying. the issue here is neglectful road repairs. the damage it does to your car and incurs costs to you that really shouldnt be borne by you. in fact if you have huge rims and drive over a certain piece of road everyday ,and there action has changed the safety of the road and damaged your wheels, if can be proved , then you could get them to pay for it. your wheels were ok up to that point, so was the road.
I'm in no way disrespecting anyone here. I haven't once mentioned anything about anyone on this forum, nor implied it.
I'm merely pointing out the flip side of what you are saying. The council can't be held responsible for every single peice of road at all times it would be a logistical nightmare and impossible.
Do you ring the council to alert them of any potholes/damage that you see forming?
It seems to me you are saying the council should be everywhere at all times and that they should be fixing any irregularity instantly? If they were to take a step towards this, are you going to be happy to foot some of the bill as either a registration increase or a rate increase? _________________
You believe that the council should be held 'accountable' for for an potential instance where the public (not singling anyone out) has damaged a vehicle.
Should not the driver be held partially 'accountable' for not being aware enough on the road to mitigate the risk of damage to thier vehicle also?
Where is the line drawn? A broken limb from a tree has fallne onto the road, not due to poor maintenance of the council, but it was broken off and rolled onto the road.
A pothole has formed early morning, and has increased in size during the day, the council has not been advised of this by any public member. Perhaps the road in question wasn't to be surveyed for damage until a couple of days/weeks later.
Who's accountability should these fall under?
Where does it say that the roads will be kept in perfect condition at ALL times and circustances for general use? You are 'assuming' that you should be getting this in the first place. _________________
ok now we are moving toward the natural degradation of a road as opposed to a perfectly good piece of road that has been modified for what ever reason. there are road patrol trucks that do drive around looking for such things. the fact they have such a truck(s) and a system as such to patrol for these issues acknowledges the fact they have thought they should be looking for these issues as opposed to relying on the public to constantly report them. we pay rates for such services to exist at the least and its implied when you pay your taxes. where are the taxes going?
keep this in mind the next time you drive over a ditch and that radius rod starts banging away. or perhaps try explain those cracks on the rim that werent there before until they installed that new drain cover. we always accept 2nd rate from state and local powers that be and its always expected we accept it. and its from here the sub standard roads we drive on are tolerated. we accept the damage and have to accept it that we have to pay for it. thats crap. if they have to drive around 24 hours 7 days a week all the better, at least they appear to be justifying there existence.
what is even more disturbing is that in the same state, you dont see this issue in other suburbs.
Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 1247 Location: Beerwah QLD
Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 6:01 pm Post subject:
Most councils have insurance for this sort of thing, you will need to document the date and time and get oics, then call them as soon as possible after the damage has occured and give them the info. Then go get a repair quote.
Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 1247 Location: Beerwah QLD
Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:16 am Post subject:
Logan council on Brisbanes south side has an insurance claims officer that I spoke to when my car was damaged by some road debris. I didn't get a claim that time because it wasn't road material, it was a sheet of rubber off the back of a truck. She said that the councils insurance was for road damage due to potholes etc.
I just today hit a pot hole wich is breaking away into a complete hole in the road, about 1 foot wide and a 600 ml coke bottle deep. it has flat spotted/buckeled my 18"x9.5" SSR professor 3 pce rim
I rang just car insurance they wanted $1900 excess one excess is for the rim the other they claim is an accident damage excess
Anyway I rang council to inform them of the hole and have been given the name of the person and company that I have to send a letter to with quotes and photo's of the hole and rim..for a claim
How small/big a flat spot can you have before you shouldnt drive on the rim
thats just a pain in the ass mate. keep us posted on how you go. i am sure your not the only poor bugger who has had this happen and had to bear the costs for other peoples ignorance.
damn dude. that aint good. hope u get a good outcome from it all.
just be thankful that only the rim is damaged. someone else had their rim just come off randomly, and they munched the front 1/4 panel _________________
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Joined: 15 Jan 2008 Posts: 52 Location: Townsville
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:55 pm Post subject:
I bought my aristo in brisbane and drove it home to townsville nth qld
about half way there we hit a pothole and it shook the whole car admitably we were not doing the speed limit
so for the next 6 hrs we had to stop at many sevro's to put air in the tyre cuase it was leaking out
not a fun trip
had to end up buying a new 19" rim when I got it home.
never ended up take photos of the pothole cause it was late at night, raining, and I wanted to get home.
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