Cost of pothole damage hits £1.7bn
Tue, 18 Mar 2025
The cost of pothole damage is increasing once again – with, after two years of declines, drivers now facing a total repair bill of £1.7bn.
The average cost of repairs has also hit a new high, with motorists now forking out £144, up from £120 last year.
The figures, from the annual Kwik Fit ‘PIT Report’ (that’s Pothole Impact Tracker), reveals that more than one million drivers were hit with a pothole repair bill of more than £300.
This mostly came from drivers’ own pockets, with 70% paying for the repairs themselves. Only 16% claimed on their car insurance, with an even smaller 7% saying they were covered by separate tyre insurance policies.
A mere 6% successfully claimed compensation from local authorities.
It’s tyres that bear the brunt of pothole damage, resulting in nearly 2 in 5 repairs.
Suspension was damaged in around 30% of cases – and wheels needed repair in more than 1 in 5 pothole incidents.
A growing trend is the need for advanced driver assistance systems, or ADAS, to also require work as part of pothole repairs.
More than a third of cars requiring repairs also needed the ADAS system to be recalibrated, adding further to the cost (and time impact) of pothole damage.
"The main components which bear the bulk of the damage – tyres and wheels, suspension and steering – are interlinked," says Kwik Fit operations director Dan Joyce.
"Even if a car is drivable after hitting a pothole, the impact may have compromised its handling, as can be seen by the fact that many drivers have had to have vital ADAS technology recalibrated. Not only do potholes present an immediate risk at the time of impact, they can have a longer-term effect on its safety on the road."
Because of all this, more than half of drivers believe UK roads are in a worse condition than they were 12 months ago – and 62% don’t think things will get better any time soon, despite additional funding recently announced by the government.
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