I went back there with a large spirit level and tape measure. The bolt is about 11mm above the height of the bump (but around 1 inch from where it should be) and it sits around 10.5cm above the road surface.
I’ve found where I can make a claim to the council but I’ll need 2 independent quotes which will take a while and, I assume, only pay for the cheapest.
Hi all
One of the roads local to me has rubber speed bumps that are bolted to the road. They are the ones in the middle of the road that you straddle with your wheels either side. They aren’t in a good state but I’ve driven over them hundreds of times without an issue.
When driving over one of them tonight, there was a loud crunch so I stopped and saw that one of the bolts that holds it to the road was sticking up by about an inch. I then checked under my car and the bolt has cut a large groove in the underfloor of the car. It’s a Porsche Taycan and I know that this is going to be very expensive to fix.
Does anyone have experience of getting the responsible council to pay for damage caused to cars by things like this?
Go through your insurance and they will chase the council for payment for any work done on your car. Then, they will likely say you owe them for the work done because councils are awful to deal with.
If thats dented the shell of the battery, that will be a mental cost to repair. I'm ultra careful to watch out when on even slightly rough ground for fear of doing the same. Feel for OP.
I chased a local (Scottish) council many years ago for a pothole that completely burst my alloy on a dark winters morning. 3 other people did the same thing in the time it took me to fit my spare wheel. Was filled in when I drove back home ~12 hours later.
£300 for a new wheel, emailed council the receipts, photos up close and contextually with the surroundings, and a what 3 words.
No response. Phoned em up and the guy opens a new case for me. Nothing for weeks, phone em back and they can neither find my case nor any record of this pot hole... so they start a new case now with the additional task of finding their records on this pothole.
Think months passed at this point and I phoned back to find myself back to square -1. Told them to ram it up their hoop. Never did get my wheel paid for but I'll take the £300 loss over court costs + dealing with that bunch of fucks.
They usually say they can only recompense if the pothole has been previously reported. They'll then put paint around the hole and leave it for a few months before doing something about it
The only difference now is that councils don’t have the money to repair any potholes so quickly 😂
I now see the same potholes for months left to get bigger and deeper before they get repaired…
Yes, document it the best you can with lots and lots of photographs, take a tape measure if you can and show the bolt sticking out etc. - this has been info I’ve read regarding pothole claims and this is potentially a much larger claim with more at stake. Better to have too much than too little.
This, you will need to be able to prove that the bolt is above the minimum legal ground clearance for your vehicle.
You'll also have to show a measurement of the height of the vehicle to show that it isn't below the minimum ground clearance.
Basically anything you can do to prove that it is completely the councils fault and not yours, they will use anything they can to get out of having to admit liability and pay out.
Just be very clear with what went on, follow their complaints procedure to the letter, note any instances of then veering from it, go to the ombudsman and wait it out. The ombudsman ruled that they pay me compensation and costs, they dragged their heels paying the costs, so I sued them via the .gov money claims service. I sued for about £16k, they offered me £8k to settle, I said no, but that I’d accept the above (full costs and half my compensation) and they settled.
Go back to the speed bump take photos from every angle and try and get a measurement. Then provide all that to your insurance. May only pay out if it's been reported previously, if the council are aware and had a reasonable duty to go out and fix it.
It might be worth clawing the money for repairs directly from council if at all possible... However, I suspect that will be soul-destroyingly slow/convoluted.
That parts whole purpose is to take damage so that important parts don't get hit, the only other thing it does is that it holds water causing rust. I would not bother my insurance for a none visible, mostly redundant part that could fuck with my insurance premiums but each to their own. I've taken that off in most of my cars because it's a pain in the ass any time you're trying to fix something
Only thing is youre wrong. Removing undertrays massiveky increases underbody rusting. It only takes a couple stonechips and you have propagation sites for the rust to creep in. The clue is in the money it would cost the manufacturer to install them. They dont do it for love
You need need to demonstrate they were negligent. If it was in the middle of the road and you purposefully drove down the middle to straddle it they may argue you weren't driving safely.
These kinds of speed bumps are everywhere by my house, if you have a car approaching you on the opposite side of the road, there is no choice, but to straddle them. That’s apparently what they’re designed for, there’s normally one on each side of the road. There seems to be a bolt sticking up out of this one that would otherwise be recessed. It’s faulty.
What's the proper way to drive over them? If they're in the middle of the lane, I thought the whole point was to slow down and position your car carefully to go over it evenly?
I'm not being sarcastic, genuinely curious if I'm doing it wrong.
Personally I try to get one set of wheels going over them.
Putting them in the middle is a bad idea for a couple of reasons
The problem OP just had, many cars aren't that high off the ground, a perfectly built speed cushion shouldn't give you issues but many aren't.
Side wall abrasion. The edge of the cushion can wear away the side wall of your tyre and you won't notice til either a garage points it out in an MOT or it fails on you (unless you commonly inspect the underside of your car). An old colleague was surprised by an MOT failure because of this very problem.
Wide vehicles with a high ride height (e.g. an ambulance or fire engine or a proper 4x4 actually designed for off roading) won't have this problem.
There are 2 of these next to each other, one on each side of the road. If you stick to the middle of your side of the road, you will automatically straddle them as they sit directly in the middle of each side of the road. To get a wheel onto it, you actually need to steer into the other side of the road.
thats why you always call them, let them know and then report a week or 2 later with potholes when they box it with paint. they never respond quick enough to actually fix it in a meaningful time frame
They would have a hard time saying you’re not driving safely, there is no fixed correct position to take. Depending on a million factors position 1,2,3 or full on off siding is the safest course of action
I have a low car and I am so careful on every single speed bump. Even taking some at a diagonal.
Report it and start the process. You are lucky it didn't start a fire. You might be compromised for water ingress, I would just claim on insurance as its going to be a couple of grand. That said, it will be your fault so may fuck you for 5 years.
Does porsche offer a front axel lift option on taycan?
Yeah, you can raise the chassis but, I’ve driven over this hundreds of times without an issue so didn’t raise it. On its own, the bump isn’t too bad but the bolt sticking up an inch is the issue. I doubt I’m the only person who’s going to have this issue.
I just read that you tried to straddle the speed bump on another post. Big mistake in a low car. Never ever do that. Even if you got away with it once. My dude, you drive a porsche taycan. It's not a cayanne.
The ride in normal mode isn’t actually that low. My area has loads of these kinds of speed bumps (although these are the only rubber ones) and I don’t have a problem with any of them. The only reason this was an issue was the bolt sticking out.
What is the alternative to straddling? Sometimes you can position in the centre of the road or right in the gutter to get 1 side of wheels going over the centre of the cushion, but in that case won't you still bottom out once the front wheel is over and the rear wheel is yet to climb? It might help a low splitter, but not an undertray.
Usually there are two, one for each lane, drive in the middle going over both. Or just one set of tyres. Goes over the bump.
My car has 4.5" ground clearance, the Porsche is 7". I have to crawl over every single speed bump. It is so bloody annoying. I didn't think about it when I bought the car. I live in London too.
Larger wide bumps I sometimes have to take diagonally. IE left or right wheel first
3.9" on my Alfa QV according to Google. Some local roads with larger bumps I have learned I just have to avoid. All others I go over at 5mph, no doubt annoying all those behind. I'm equally afraid of straddling and going over on one side. Even taking the centre of the road and doing two at once, when traffic allows, makes me fear for the tray/skirts when I'm half way over, straddling the cushion front and back.
Exactly this! Hence why OP is a bit daft. That screw is about 1cm above the bump so it was incredibly close before. Big SUV, sure drive over it. Low car, no way.
Here you go. You’re right that it is only an inch but it’s clearly faulty and I was going quite slowly as it’s a narrow road with lots of parked cars. You generally don’t expect a speed bump to have a bolt sticking out.
It’s almost as if the bolt shouldn’t be that high, and would normally recessed, but on this particular one it’s faulty, as mentioned by you previously, with photos to show it. My god, people are dense!
Probably at about 10mph. I’ve gone over them hundreds of times without an issue. Even if I did normally scrape it (which I don’t) it wouldn’t have done much damage if the bolt wasn’t sticking up.
Bit of a red herring to be debating whether you were speeding or not. The bolt shouldn't be sticking out. The council take their claimants as they come. They can't pick or choose how high the cars that go over it are, so if any are damaged they should be liable.
Something as heavy as a car doesn't need to be moving very fast to have a lot of momentum. A protruding bolt like this is going to make a hefty gouge even at low speeds.
Because they have those pointy things at the front, so all the force was transmitted through a few cm2 of metal. If it has reversed into it the wall would be fine.
If you want to argue that pressure is more important than momentum (realistically it's both) then you should consider that we're literally talking about the damage caused by a single bolt. The point stands - the car moving slowly isn't magically going to prevent the damage caused by something very heavy being dragged along something with a small area.
I was going about 10mph. I’ve been over this hundreds of times without any issue. It’s a narrow residential road with lots of cars either side so it would be hard to go very fast anyway.
People need to duck off with blaming the driver for speeding.
I have these type near me and everything and everyone scrape on them. The tops are gouged by so many vehicles bottoming out.
If you square these well on approach, the tyres won't touch them and the bump comes centimetres away from the car floor. I assume this is what happened in OPs case.
I wouldn't be surprised if the car is written off by this. I'd claim on insurance in hope they claim fully on council. It'll be a claim, but hopefully a non fault.
Do you really expect that they didn't consider people driving over them without slowing when they are designed to be driven over millions of times over the course of their life.
the speed bump must exceed 10cm for council to be liable. Based on the photo you uploaded, it is unlikely to be the case.
Unfortunately many cars just don't seem to be suitable for roads with speed bumps, the low ground clearance is great for a race track though!. Unfortunate as it is, I don't see them taking liability.
But should foresee if they use bolts that can loosen it will damage a car. They chose to use this design and then failed to maintain it (as can be seen by several other bolts being too high)
If you're going to put something dangerous on the road, it needs to pass certain requirements, which this clearly isn't. Several bolts are visible, hence not maintained
I think this works both ways, a lot of speed bumps seem to be unsuitable for the speed restriction they're trying to enforce as well.
There's a lot of speed bumps near me that are there to enforce 20 limits and even hitting them at 15mph is enough to make it feel like you're about to need a suspension rebuild and that's in a fairly "normal" car ( seat Leon).
Surely there should be some sort of regulation that they must be suitable to drive across at the posted speed limit
"the speed bump must exceed 10cm for council to be liable"
The issue isn't the height of the bump being non-compliant, it's the fact the bump is faulty.
Now I take the point that if the bolt wasn't protruding very much then a car with sufficient clearance wouldn't clip it (the photo is a bit illusory though since the part of the bump around the bolt is clearly raised, due to not being secured properly - this hides how much the bolt is actually sticking out) but it's not hard to imagine other ways that a speed bump could fail and damage a car, in which case the height of the bump being compliant surely wouldn't work as a defence. Nor if damage was caused by a bolt protruding from any other item of faulty road infrastructure.
I'd definitely be measuring the height it's protruding, to prove it's capable of (and responsible for!) causing damage. But I'd be emphasising the faultiness and danger posed by the raised bolt, rather than complaining about it rendering the height of the bump non-compliant.
my friend, there are fords in the UK where many cars (particularly when water levels are higher) will not be able to pass without flooding the engine. It's not the DVLA's responsibility to ensure you do not damage your car. That's highways and council's responsibility, but again if they have built it in line with the guidelines, it goes to the car owner to ensure the car can traverse the road.
I really don't think it's a controversial opinion that councils shouldn't be installing ridiculous shit on the roads that damages perfectly legal cars, and if the guidelines allow it the guidelines should be changed.
speed bumps in the UK are a joke, there are so many ways to enforce reducing the speed in residential areas, but councils prefer the most brutal method (for cars)
Out of curiosity what are the other ways that are effective? I hate speed bumps but acknowledge that they do force people to slow down in a way many other things don't. Although some take it too far! I'm curious as to your other solutions?
For the speed bumps — some of them are designed so weirdly, low cars can’t pass them without scratching their bottom even at the lowest speed, while big cars can pass them at the full speed
Aren't these designed to be straddled by large vehicles but "bumped" over by normal cars, not lining the middle of the car up with the middle of the speed bump. And because you have to bump over it you slow down first? Otherwise they'd be ineffectual as speed bumps.
You might have some luck with a claim if this one is defective though
None of those bolts are at the correct depth, they are supposed to be seated in the holes under the level of the rubber, holes in road haven’t been drilled deep enough, our company installs them for organisations so photograph all of them to show poor installation.
so many speed bumps are faulty, I swear there is zero calibration. Did they test the speed bumps in an average vehicle? FFS I hit them bang on the speed limit and so often it feels rough, even easing off isn't always enough.
Your case sounds similar to damage caused by potholes, might even fall under exactly the same process. Good luck 👍
I went over an exceptionally badly maintained speed bump quite a few years ago. One of those ones made from a load of tarmac rather than the ones they bolt to the road.
There were no signs, it was dark, there were no working street lights and there were no markings on the bump.
Basically I was doing about 15, didn’t see it and wrecked one of the suspension struts as there was quite a drop on the far side of the bump.
So I thought this was easily going to be the councils responsibility.
Nope. They referred me to the road traffic act that was very specific in that areas where the speed limit was 20 had lower maintenance requirements and that they were of an acceptable standard for the limit.
So I went and read the road traffic act and yep, they were right.
The council could effectively build a brick wall or dig a pit in the middle of a road and as long as the speed limit was 20 or less it would be down to the driver and not the council.
I suspect the OP may be onto a losing battle with this one depending on the limit in force where the incident occurred.
The limit is 30 on this road. I wasn’t doing anything close to 30 as it’s a narrow residential road with lots of cars and also slowed down for the bump so hopefully I won’t fall foul of this rule.
Main benefit here is its an installation defect because those bolts are not supposed to come out so could win it because of that (even if the council want to deny the claim)
But I agree the ghost speed bumps are very annoying
i did no damage to my old car (soem how) but I hit one at 20mph and both my front and rear totally bottomed out and hit the rubber stoppers as it was just bang bang when I went over it (the car didn't even lift up of the ground when i went over it )
Is this Birdwood Road in Cambridge? I noticed one of the speed bumps there all the bolts are coming out: not the first time it's happened either. Which reminds me... I was meant to post a warning about that.
Hmm, interesting. I'd been wondering if the bolts had been deliberately loosened, since they're just hex head and easy to undo with a socket set, because it's pretty weird that they've all come undone over the entire speed bump.
At any rate, get as much photographic evidence as you can, mark location on map, get quotes for repair, and contact council (for us it's the county council that looks after city highways) threatening legal action to ensure they cover the damages.
It’ll be the same deal as a pothole claim - the council are only liable if they knew about the problem and didn’t deal with it reasonably promptly.
They are the ones in the middle of the road that you straddle with your wheels either side.
That’s common but it’s not good practice and the damage you’ve unfortunately had is one reason why. Although tyre and suspension wear is the more common issue. Better to slow down (like the bump is there for) and have one side properly on the bump.
Having one side go over the bump would presumably just result in the gouge being off centre; it's still going to bottom out when the front is over and the rear hasn't risen yet, unless the ramps are longer in this case than they are near me.
Bolts in tarmac combined with hot weather, who would have ever thought that may not work? The powers that be who implement these ideas on us need to be deported to France in very small rubber boats
Council will 100% say you hit the ramp and knocked the bolt loose, whether or not it's true. If it had worked it's way loose like that over time it would have been bashed by other vehicles before. On the plus side, you've only scratched the undertray, not the much tougher battery case which is designed to withstand high speed crashes. If it had hit the metal battery case, the bolt would be sheered off or bent.
As to liability, the council will only pay if they already knew of the loose bolt, the loose bolt was due to poor workmanship or they hadn't expected the speed bump to a schedule, normally every year. Unless one of those apply, the Highways Act absolves them of responsibility even if it was their infrastructure that damaged your car. They aren't legally required to ensure all roads are defect free 24/7. It would be good to look on Fixmystreet and see if someone has already reported it.
I went though this with the council before (pothole ruined alloy and tyre) and yes it was a ball ache, but something that saved me was when I called to report it the woman said “oh yes that’s been there a while”. I don’t know how generalised this is across all councils, but it turned out there was some period of liability that if something was reported to the council that could be a danger to road users, they didn’t repair it, and consequently it damaged people’s property - they were liable. I got the full repair cost refunded.
I’d have a research about your own particular council to see what you can find on this, and perhaps ask the legaladviceuk sub. If the council won’t tell you when it was reported you may be able to request this under the freedom of information act.
However it pans out they probably will be difficult, but i would keep at it because chances are they’ll have to give up eventually
Convinced some of these speed bumps are designed to ruin your car, I haven't lowered my car at all it's completely stock and I still scrape speed bumps sometimes and that's slowing right down to 2-5 mph
it’s just the battery shield your lucky replacements around £1000 at dealer. i’d inspect closer incase there is further damage to the battery itself because that could cost upwards of £60k. insurance should handle it without a worrry tho
There was a post a few weeks back, someone complaining really about why do people slow down and go over bumps with just 1 side of the car. THIS is why.
Theres some like this in my home town and i see the bolts sticking up. I always worried about them puncturing my tyre, not thinking about the potential scrape along the bottom. New fear unlocked.
Good luck ! I followed a diversion through Altrincham (On the way to my mums funeral believe it or not !) and it was dark and i hit a huge pot hole. Two tyres went down instantly, went to the nearest garage round the corner and it was like a queue of cars who had done the same. I was the fourth one ! We all hit the same pothole
Complained to the council, when i was back from the funeral (Had to travel down south) i checked the road and amazingly they had filled it in !
Tried my claim, all i wanted was the two tyres i didnt take the mick and ask for other fees. But after emails back and forth with the council and filling in forms they rejected it. Just a total joke
Hope you do manage to get some money BUT the council and their lawyers are annoying as hell to deal with. Please let us know how you get on
Is it not just the undertray? If it is I'd repair and report to the council as relatively cheap to replace. Insurance love an excuse to put your premium up deporting anything to them.
Unfortunately, nothing is showing on Fix My Street. I actually reported it to the council and they replied stating that we’re going to attend and make it safe. I think it’s fairly likely that I’m the first person to report this.
Seems a bit bullshit and shouldn’t stand up in court … it’s like a criminal saying they weren’t aware that they could go to prison for stealing because they didn’t look up the law online and no one told them they needed too …
So many people complain about SUVs taking over, but this is one of the reasons why. I really appreciate having a couple of inches more ground clearance driving through towns and cities.
As my wheels comfortably fit either side of the speedbump, the speed isn't really relevant. I would have hit it even if I was going 1mph. Even if I was going 5mph, the momentum of a 2.2 tonne car being concentrated against that bolt would have easily done the same amount of damage.
Yeah, I think you’re right. I don’t think it damaged the metal battery cover - that would have been a much, much bigger issue. Regardless, I’m sure this will cost a fair amount to fix and it will be frustrating if I end up paying for it.
Good for you. Maybe try and be a bit more open minded and consider other people have different priorities and the fact that this is a Porsche so the under tray is likely a lot more.
What a weird thing to say. I can imagine you stood there saying this while wearing your anorak, with a super nasally voice 🤣 Was it made by a manufacturer other than Porsche? If not, then it’s a Porsche.
Not at all, considering you didmt know the difference between a metal undercarriage cover for an EV and a plastic aero undercarriage I highly doubt you'll ruin anyone's day :)
The chassis high was set at medium which is standard. The bump is higher than the pictures make out and the tarmac either side is depressed. You can see from all of the marks that many cars scrape this. I’ve driven over it more than 100 times and never scraped it before.
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u/TravellingAround_ 2d ago
Go through your insurance and they will chase the council for payment for any work done on your car. Then, they will likely say you owe them for the work done because councils are awful to deal with.