Are business driving costs up to due to potholes?

The cost of operating a fleet of vehicles can be high. For this reason, companies tend to do all they can to minimise their expenditure on transport. One way of achieving this is to opt for fuel cards. Indeed, evidence suggests that more and more firms are opting to implement fuel card systems.

However, there are certain expenses that are hard to avoid and one of these is wear and tear to vehicles. And recent research noted that road users may be particularly hard pressed to avoid damaging their vehicles at present as a result of potholes.A poll of 1,478 drivers conducted by insurance firm More Than suggested that there has been a 90 per cent increase in such surface problems since the bad weather in December. Furthermore, 72 per cent of respondents noted these holes had affected their driving over the last 12 months.

Around one-third of those polled revealed these imperfections had caused them to brake heavily, while more than 30 per cent had had to swerve into another lane. Meanwhile, eight per cent had driven into the path of oncoming traffic and just under four per cent had swerved onto pavements.

So, even if companies use fuel cards in a bid to reduce their running costs, they may find they are unable to cope with the repair bills and possibly legal repercussions of driving behaviour caused by potholes. Indeed, such expenses may completely wipe out any savings made as a result of fuel card systems.

Commenting on the findings, More Than director Peter Markey said: “December was the coldest experienced in the UK since records began, which, unsurprisingly, has heavily impacted our roads.”Drivers across the country are now facing a serious hazard to their journeys, with the average driver saying they have to dodge around six potholes every day.” When water gets into cracks in the surface of highways and then freezes, it expands and this causes the gaps to get bigger. In some cases, significant damage is done to the road material.