Moped rider in safety plea after pothole crash

A moped rider has called for more to be done to fix roads in Kent after he was flung off his bike when he hit a pothole.

Sean Henry said potholes were an extreme hazard for bikers and he feels unsafe, especially on country lanes.

It comes after the AA said the top transport demand of 96% of its members was fixing potholes, with increased investment in repairing and upgrading roads.

Kent County Council's (KCC) Reform UK leader Linden Kemkaran said the authority was focused on preventative measures and doing large-scale patching.

Henry described how he hit a pothole riding his moped from Maidstone to Folkestone a few weeks ago.

"It was literally a good few inches wide and a couple of inches deep and I didn't see it until really last second," he said.

"I didn't have any time to react, so I went forward about 10m (33ft) and my bike actually went right along the crack – very unsafe, very unsettling when you're riding."

The 21-year-old, who lives in Maidstone, spoke to the BBC while he was visiting family in Folkestone, and described potholes on country lanes as a "nightmare".

He said rural roads around Maidstone, Ashford and Folkestone were particularly bad.

President of the AA Edmund King said: "The government published an interactive map of how local authorities are doing in repairing potholes and most of the local highway authorities across the South East got an amber rating."

He said South East councils were "not the best and they're not the worst" but added the AA wanted to see permanent repairs and for all repairs to be guaranteed for five years.

KCC's amber rating came after the Department for Transport assessed all local authorities on the current condition of local roads.

At KCC, Kemkaran said: "We are now putting a lot more emphasis on preventative measures.

"Instead of waiting for a pothole to appear and then patching it, we are going out and looking for roads that are looking slightly frayed around the edges and we are doing large-scale patching."

The government committed £7.3bn in November's budget to fix roads over the next four years.

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