Car-lover, Jeremy Clarkson, has slammed the state of the roads in Britain and “doubts” pothole-ridden roads will ever be repaired in the UK. Criticising local councils for the failure of road services and describing his experiences “smashing” into potholes, Clarkson has written in The Sun about the terrible ordeal he suffered last year on Britain’s roads. He’s also compared his driving woes in Britain to other countries around the world.
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It is not just national roads that are a problem for Clarkson, on a trip to West Africa, Clarkson described his car troubles. He said: “We like to think that Africa’s roads are bad, but I drove through Senegal the other day and it was like rolling over the marbled floor of a billionaire’s snooker room.”
Clarkson has had his fair share of pothole collisions too, writing: “Last year, I smashed into a hole so big there were dinosaurs living at the bottom of it, and it felt like my spine had momentarily appeared out of the top of my head.” Because of the difficulty of car parts being produced by a factory in Ukraine, the presenter had to wait three months for replacements.
Tongue-in-cheek, Clarkson explained there was a road near his house that did not contain any pothole damages. However, he later explains, it is because potholes only form when there is an actual road service – which there isn’t on this particular road because the road surface has “washed away” over the years.
Complaining about the lack of pothole surface repairs, Clarkson believes councils are more preoccupied with other topical subjects such as “permanent pronoun awareness day”.
Figures provided by 81 councils to the Liberal Democrats revealed councils reported 556,658 potholes in the financial year 2021-2022, which is an increase from 519,968 in 2017-2018.
The motoring association, AA, said it received 52,000 road surface-related callouts in April alone to vehicles stranded due to faults likely caused by potholes. This was a 29 percent increase in the number of callouts received for the same issue, this time last year, with problems including damaged shock absorbers, broken suspension springs, and distorted wheels.
Clarkson paid a mention to single mum, Alisha Howe, who The Sun reported was hospitalised after her Ford car flipped after hitting a pothole in Northamptonshire and said “every day, we read about some poor soul” because they have hit “a crater in the road”.
Clarkson describes how councils are forking out payments to those who have been injured by potholes and mentioned the eye-watering bill of £14billion that it would cost to mend the nations’ potholes.
The car-lover added: “People should be allowed to mend the potholes themselves.” Nodding to Rod Stewart, Clarkson mentions the entertainer who famously mended a pothole near his home in Essex with pictures shared going viral on social media.
The broadcaster airs his ideas for a pothole-free country by writing: “We do what the Senegalese have done. And the Rwandans. We give the Chinese all the mineral rights to what lies beneath our feet — so they can have the coal we don’t want anyway. And in exchange, they install a whole new road network. Simples.”
