This is the best summary I could come up with:
A north-east Victorian pensioner is “devastated” that he has failed to receive any compensation to help pay for thousands of dollars in vehicle damage caused by large potholes on state-managed roads.
“There was a car coming the other way with high beam headlights and it was raining, and we just couldn’t see the hole and we hit that and we did another two tyres,” Mr Butler said.
He had the incidents verified by police before he applied to VicRoads for some compensation with the help of his local state MP’s office, and was appalled when his claim was rejected.
The staff at Wodonga tyre shop Jappo Donks have seen a huge increase in customers needing repairs due to pothole damage on local highways and surrounding roads over the past year.
Benambra MP Bill Tilley has this year been sent a string of images from constituents who have sustained damage to their cars from potholes.
A Grattan Institute report released this week warned that local roads were in a state of dangerous disrepair, and would continue to deteriorate without an extra $1 billion in funding each year.
The original article contains 791 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I’m sure his medical appointments are important, but unless he needs to get a dialysis machine or iron lung serviced, what medical appointment necessitates towing a trailer?
It feels like the roads in that area have reached the end of their lifespan all at the same time. Locals have resorted to using spray paint to mark the holes because the councils don’t seem to care.
It doesn’t help that idiots keep buying/selling cars with ridiculously low profile tyres and then speed through roadworks.
Back in the 1990s and 2000s, people would choose to get illegally ridiculously low profile tyres fitted to their “high performance” vehicles for either track use or for styling. That was fine because they knew that it negatively effected reliability and longevity, so they drove to the conditions, avoided pot holes and didn’t whinge if they fucked up an damaged their rims.
Now manufacturers install Low profile tyres on any PovPack, don’t include a spare tyre to save weight, just so they can fudge emissions ratings and economy numbers.
Newsflash, if you have to replace your tyres every six months because you keep blowing them out on potholes, it is more detrimental to the environment than slightly higher fuel consumption!
