IT’S official – Donegal is a pothole blackspot!
There has been a huge increase in the number of people who have needed their cars fixed as a result of hitting a pothole on the county’s road since the start of this year.
A survey by the AA has shown that 17% of its members in Co Donegal needed assistance or had to leave their car in a garage after they struck a pothole.
And that’s not all.
According to the watchdog website www.potholes.ie, Donegal is one of the worst counties in Ireland for road holes with 47 outstanding complaints from Bundoran to Buncrana.
The recent bitter cold-snap left many roads across Donegal in horrendous condition with some stretches of road being particularly badly-hit.
The council did dispatch a number of crews to fill the potholes but many have broken up again.
The AA is calling on drivers to sign a petition putting pressure on local authorities to fix the roads.
In Donegal, almost 17% of AA members said they had struck a pothole since the start of this year which required a call-out or left their vehicle in need of garage repair.
This is an increase of 2% on the period from September to December last year and almost double the figure prior to 2009.
According to Conor Faughnan of the AA, the issue of potholes on Irish roads is simply ot taken seriously enough by local authorities.
“If you had a hole in your roof and the rain was getting in, you wouldn’t put it off until the end of the year.
“If people are going into holes and damaging their cars then the local authorities need to act to repair these dangers as soon as possible,” he said.
Now the AA is looking for signatures to put pressure on local authorities to carry out repairs -the petition can be signed at www.aaireland.ie/pothole.
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