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The AA has attended almost half a million pothole-related breakdowns in the first nine months of 2024 – and Britain’s crumbling road epidemic is set to worsen as a result of the heavy rainfall over recent weeks.

The emergency assistance provider has alone responded to 480,000 callouts from stranded motorists after hitting potholes between January and September.

Last month, its patrols attended 50,244 incidents, up 4 per cent year-on-year and the highest on record since 2017. 

With the crisis expected to worsen in the remaining three months of the calendar following flooding across the country in the last month, the motoring group has called on the Government to increase funding to permanently repair roads rather than provide ineffective patchwork solutions.

The AA says it has seen a 4% rise in pothole-related vehicle breakdowns in the first 9 months of the year – and worse is set to come as temperatures begin to fall following spate of wet weather

The AA, Britain’s biggest breakdown provider, says it has responded to 479,656 pothole-triggered breakdowns so far this year.

This is 10,000 more than the same period in 2023, according to its monthly Pothole Index.

The latest update suggests that 2024 is on course to surpass last year’s total number of callouts, which stood at 631,852, which was reported to be a five-year high.

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With the RAC – the second largest patrol – also attending around 8,000 callouts for pothole damage per quarter, more than 500,000 UK drivers have likely fallen victim to the poor state of the nation’s road surfaces.

And there are fears that Britain’s recent spell of bad weather will exacerbate what is already a major issue.

Following weeks of flooding, the AA says potholes are being disguised as they fill with water.

Falling temperatures and greater rainfall will also increase the number of severity of potholes, leading to tyre, wheel, steering and suspension damage for those who can’t steer clear of them. 

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Even more vulnerable are cyclists, with the AA claiming as many as 118 have been killed over the past four years due to potholes.

Back in March, the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) said it would take 11 years for jasa pendirian pt cv pma dan virtual office tangerang selatan, local authorities to fix every crumbling road in England and Wales, up from nine years in 2022, and cost a staggering £16.43billion.

The AIA’s Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) report also found there were 8,000 fewer miles of road classified as ‘good’ compared with last year – a fall of 4 per cent.

The RAC had previously estimated there were around a million potholes around the UK at any given time, whilst an eye-watering 2.2 million were fixed in 2023.

Transport Secretary Louise Haigh had pledged during Labour’s General Election campaign to redirect £8.3billion of available funding from the scrapped HS2 budget to tackle the pothole epidemic and ‘provide councils with long-term funding settlements so roads are fixed for the long-term’.

With the Autumn Budget looming this month, the AA has teamed up with the likes of British Cycling, the National Motorcyclists Council, road safety group IAM RoadSmart and JCB – which has developed a specialist PotholePro repair vehicle – to form what it calls the ‘Pothole Partnership’.

It warned that road users are ‘fed up’ with the current conditions and called for a new wave of funding and guidance for local authorities to make necessary repairs and help them maintain a good condition.

‘[The government] has the opportunity to make a step change in the spiral of decline by adopting and advocating measures to permanently fix the problem, rather than the past patchwork approach,’ AA President Edmund King said.

Last month, Ms Haigh declared war on potholes, vowing to use cutting-edge repair technology to battle the ‘plague’.

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During a visit to Blackpool, the Transport Secretary met road workers and councillors to learn about high-definition imagery technology.

The town’s Project Amber scheme uses an advanced imagery system that takes high-definition pictures of roads to detect potholes and compile data on areas most in need of repair.

It is hoped similar systems can be replicated across the country.

Ms Haigh said: ‘For too long, this country has suffered from a pothole plague.

‘Blackpool Council are already doing fantastic work to make the most of new technology to repair potholes faster.

‘This should be a model for every community to learn from and help deliver the roads their drivers deserve.’