'It's just frustrating': New Brunswick pothole causes thousands of dollars in damages

Dieppe, N.B. -

Andrew Arseneau travels Amirault Road in Dieppe, N.B., almost daily during his commute to work, but Tuesday night’s journey home ended up costing him $3,000 in damages.

“It hit so hard that my dash lit up like a Christmas tree,” he said.

“I looked at the vehicle and my front tire was blown, that’s for sure. I only got the car a few weeks ago. It’s brand new.”

He says the road has been under construction for a few weeks and he was looking for the familiar road signs that indicated it was coming up so he could slow down and maneuver the strip of torn up asphalt carefully.

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“There was no sign, and I mean, I was looking for the sign and you think if there’s no sign, well they might have fixed it,” he said.

“It was raining and snowing and the traffic wasn’t going that fast, I was maybe going 40 in a 50 zone and as I was trying to pay attention to look for the sign and keep my eyes in front of me, that’s when I hit that pothole.”

He was driving home around 4:30 p.m., when there was still some daylight left, and he says he wasn’t the only driver impacted by the sudden potholes and lack of signage.

“As I pulled over to the side of the road there was three vehicles already pulled over and they all had flat tires and bent rims and as I pulled over in the church parking lot, a lady pulled in beside me and her tire was gone and her rim was completely bent,” he said.

The City of Dieppe’s website states that courts have determined municipalities are not responsible for damages caused by potholes, adding that a driver’s only recourse would be to prove the city’s negligence in court.

“Potholes by their nature are expected in Atlantic Canda, however, if they grow to the point that they can cause damage to cars or persons, the municipalities, the province, have an obligation to repair them,” said Motor Vehicle Accident litigator Michael Murphy.

“They have a system in place. If they ignore that system or are negligent with not following it, then they’re liable.”

Arseneau says the signs that he was used to seeing on his commute had blown over in the wind giving no warning to drivers.

“In my opinion, the sign was held up with a PVC pipe cut in half with a little slit in it… The sign holder was about maybe a foot high, if even that, so any wind would knock that over, which is what happened,” he said.

Murphy says that should never happen.

“Those signs that they put up have to be secure so that people can see that in the morning or the evening and I’ve had a lot of cases in Atlantic Canada on signage put up by the province or a municipality that either blows over or falls down,” said Murphy.

He says municipalities are not responsible for “normal, run of the mill” potholes, but they would be responsible if they knew or ought to have known that a pothole was going to grow where it could cause damage or injury.

Arseneau says he believes the city should be responsible for these damages and plans to pursue the issue.

CTV News reached out to the City of Dieppe to see how many drivers filed a complaint, but the city didn’t answer that question.

“It’s just frustrating to have this happen to no fault of my own I believe,” said Arseneau.

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