Dh drove through one of our fine selection of local potholes in the dark one night, and burst two tires and dented the rims of the wheels too. It's not the first time we've damaged a tire in a pothole - we had to spend over £100 on a new tire about 18 months ago, and dh tried to charge the council for it, but they claimed the pothole had appeared since their last inspection, and no-one had reported it, so they weren't liable.
Our local council also say they have 28 days from the date when a pothole is reported to fix it, before they become liable for any damage it causes.
They are finally fixing some of the local potholes - I was actually starting to think I was going to have to go the long way round off the estate because the short way off the estate was pretty much undriveable due to all the potholes. Anyway, some blokes with a lorryload of tarmac have been out, and now we have lumps instead of holes - they are just dumping tarmac into the holes, smoothing it off a bit, and going onto the next one. There's no attempt to flatten the tarmac properly, or to seal the edges of the repairs with tar, so the water is going to get underneath these patches, and the next time it freezes, the repairs will start to disintegrate, and we will be back where we started.
I strongly suspect that it isn't the council who are doing this, but some sub-sub-contractors - or to put it better, fly-by-night cowboys who happen to have a lorry, a load of tarmac and a couple of spades from B&Q!!