London pothole payout

2 years ago this month I posted about a pothole at Old Street roundabout where I came off and injured myself. Finally awarded compensation in the sum of £4000 less 25% for a no win no fee solicitors bill. I believe TFL were at fault.

Amazing. Nice one.

Had you/do you know if anyone else had reported it prior to your crash?

That seems to be the key thing up here and even then it’s meant to be pretty hard to get a pay out.

Not sure if any else had reported it. My solicitor didn't mention anything. It was touch and go whether it went to court. I was shitting myself incase it did and I lost the case cause the final bill was £11,000 which I would of probably had to pay.

Had a really bad one about 4 years ago, was a hole that was well known by the authority, had been repaired 3 times in 2 years, so they knew it was a recurring issue (none of the repairs were real, only temp make do till the end of the month quality of repair). Hole was severe enough to break the fork most of the way through, loss of control, mangled knee's and legs, huge time off work etc.
Authority got off with it as essentially they had 'attended to the road in excess of the number of periodic inspections required', therefore there couldn't have been a defect as bad as that, because they'd already fixed it numerous times. Local councils are able to make up their own inspection routines for smaller urban roads as they see fit.
Think there was somewhere in one of the legal responses they made a statement 'the parties transport was unsuitable for the road in question'. I.e. I was riding a bicycle and not driving a rangerover. Bike was a new bike of quality with no issues.
One day might take that one to the press "council states roads too shit for bikes, protect yourself by buying an SUV instead" is probably how the media would interpret it.

That's shit. Sounds like you was more entitled to the payout that I got.

Still can't walk right, been a LOT of money from NHS in two minor knee ops (quick old keyhole stuff), 4 years of Physio and constant issues with it, a few sets of fancy custom made shoes, and then have subsidized that with private physio and acupuncture, bike was binned, jacket was unfixable, helmet too (super glad was wearing one as I hit a lamppost on my way down too). Total cost so far (to me and the taxpayer) likely above £25k not including time off work, subsequent loss of work (my contract was not renewed as I couldn't really do the job anymore, but not the employers fault TBF, I should have been driving a rangerover). And then any future and ongoing impact to life (its more just that its painful than that I can't do it now, just got to suck it up really), and yeah, got zero.

Biggest actual loss to me is social, I barely ride anymore not scarred of riding, just really do not like riding on the road, so theres a whole bunch of people I don't socialize with anymore. I play polo too, but again much less in the last few years as knee keeps giving me grief.

Had the same issue that it would go to court and the solicitor I was with were basically like 'mate this ain't gonna go your way, or its such a 50:50 that we are advising you to not proceed to court, as someone will have to pay the court costs and they will be a lot'. So dropped the whole thing, then a month later started again with a different solicitor who worked it for about 2 years off and on and eventually got to the same outcome, £nada.

Sell your bike. Buy a rangerover*

*please don't though.