A Nova Scotia man says he’s frustrated and angry that the province’s transportation department continues to give him the run-around after his car was damaged when he hit a pothole in March.
Stan Doucette says the repairs cost him over $300.
“It would probably be cheaper for the government to pay for my damages than keep paying for an adjuster,” says the New Minas man. “The wheel bearing on the passenger side is gone.”
Doucette says he has been fighting for the government to pay for the damages, but he’s not getting very far.
“My claim didn’t go through. There wasn’t enough proof,” he says. “They wanted me to send in my plates, they wanted me to send in a copy from the vehicle where it was being repaired, and I did that.”
He appealed and was denied a second time, but that hasn’t stopped Doucette, who is on this third appeal with an independent adjustor.
Officials at the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal say the pothole wasn’t reported as being a problem before the accident.
In their letter to Doucette, they say while they recognize their obligation to provide safe highways, those obligations don’t apply to road conditions that are out of their control.
“We have a road hazard policy which has a few elements to it,” says Charles MacDonald, the department’s executive director of maintenance and operations. “We investigate whether the pothole has been identified as part of our process we have to sign the pothole and repair it in a timely manner.”
Local mechanic Josh Noiles says he has noticed an increase in the number of pothole-related damages.
“We’ve seen some cars with the actual underbody scraped, frames scraped,” says Noiles. “We’ve seen some significant suspension damage, customers complain specifically about the potholes.”
Aside from costly repairs, Doucette says he also worries about road safety.
“I feel like it is going to take someone to get killed before it is fixed.”
With files from CTV Atlantic's Gena Holley
