Gone to Pot? Confused.com Reveals Just How Far the UK’s Pothole Problem Goes

Everyone’s had to deal with it. Driving down the road and feeling that awful bump as you collide with a pot hole. Your mind immediately goes to the potential cost of fixing the suspension, or worse still, replacing a wishbone. But exactly how bad has the issue of our dodgy roads become in the UK?

Leading insurance comparison website Confused.com recently decided to investigate the scale and scope of this problem. Collecting reports from UK councils under the Freedom of Information act, this organisation has compiled an animation that provides a true picture of the road pothole landscape.

What’s the verdict? The animation shows that a staggering 905,000 potholes were reported to local authorities in the UK during the 2017-2018 period. Before you grab your calculator, we’ll do the maths for you. It works out to an average of almost 2,500 reports per day.

In classic Confused.com style, the animation allows you to interact with a scrolling animation that compares the combined depths of all the potholes in the UK, with some of the most famous iconic depths.

On this journey you quickly get below the bottom of the English Channel at a measly 174m. You’ll blast past the famous Mariana Trench at a paltry 11km and even the deepest hole ever dug by man at 12.3km pales into the background, when you discover that the total depth of our potholes is around 30km. That’s deep enough to penetrate our planet’s upper mantle.

Watch the animation yourself and prepare to be amazed at the extent of the UK’s rocky roads…

Created by Confused.com (view the full interactive)

Want a quick snapshot of the extent of the problem in the UK’s different regions?

• South East has 122,534 potholes to a combined depth of 4,830m

• Scotland has 111,261 potholes to a combined depth of 4,432m

• South West has 103,652 potholes to a combined depth of 4,021m

And UK councils need to have deep pockets too when it comes to pothole problems. £2.8m was paid out in compensation claims to motorists during the same period. Further research has discovered that around one third (34%) of UK drivers believe their car has been damaged by potholes at some point.

Additionally almost a quarter (22%) of UK motorists are unsure as to whether they can claim for pothole damage, so if you’re one of them, find out more in the following guide.