Earlier this week on Monday, London made a public service announcement saying they were ‘actively addressing the issue’ of potholes throughout the city.
“Lately we’ve seen quite a few people with bent wheels. We’ve seen a couple of bent lower control arms, a tie rod, which is part of the steering apparatus bent by hitting a pothole. So, yeah, we’ve seen quite a bit of damage in the last couple weeks.” Says Matt Smith owner and operator of Wortley Auto, a local auto service shop here in London.
Tires on shop floor (Credit: Mayan Correia)
Smith talks about what he’s been doing with his dealership when it comes to customers who come in with tire damage.
“The first thing that we do is try to get the car repaired back to its original equipment standard. We tried to get the car back to where it was before it hit a puddle. So if the wheel’s bent, we replace it. If the tire’s damaged, we replace it.
“Generally, we would perform a wheel alignment to make sure that the wheels are aligned properly and going down a road street keeps the car in a lane and does what it’s supposed to.”
From there, Smith mentions a step in the process that requires reaching out to the city when it comes to damage from potholes specifically.
“From that point, very often we recommend people contact the city of London because if you have a program for compensating people for pothole damage. The leave requirement is you have to take a picture of the pothole. Note the location where the incident happened and then you have to document the damage to the car.”
“So you need a copy of the repair order from the shop. You choose to take it too and probably pictures of the damage to the car as well would not be a bad idea since most people have a smartphone in their pocket. It’s pretty easy to do that these days.”
Sometimes it’s difficult to understand exactly how potholes can occur and cause serious damage to vehicles. But thankfully, Smith explained the exact process behind how these situations happen.
“You get heaving in the pavement with the frost; the temperature d
Damaged Tire (Credit: Wortley Auto)
rops and goes above and below freezing. So you get frost coming out of the ground and causing heaving in the pavement and then you have uneven bits of asphalt that get broken off by the snow clouds over the winter and then you get water that gathers inside these small holes and then it freezes.”
“When the water freezes, we know it expands and then it pushes a hole apart. And then it melts and it leaves the hole and there’s quite a large void and you know it just keeps getting worse and worse.”
“The potholes get bigger every time that freeze thaw cycle happens and as cars drive through it it breaks away more pieces of the asphalt until you have a crater big enough to bend a wheel.”
The city of London said that major roads, bus routes and secondary roads will get attention first.
The announcement came due to a high number of complaints to service London from Londoners about the potholes.
A popular term known as ‘pothole season’ which is when potholes are most common usually lasts from February to April due to weather conditions.
Service London encourages citizens to reach out to them to report on potholes throughout the city.
