[ba] road repair trench = tire damage

[Seth Haynes]

You can call the city offices and ask them where to start. I had an incident similar to yours several years ago in Pleasant Hill and I filed a claim with the public works office. It was simple. I just went to the public works office and asked for an insurance claim form. I filled out the claim form and an incident report and submitted copies of my receipts (my damage included wheel repair and tire replacement) and copies of pictures of the road and the damage. A month later I received a check in the mail from the city.

If they repaired the ditch in question, it is fine. They should have record of that. 

Good Luck!

Seth Haynes
925-997-8428


On Sep 20, 2010, at 5:57 AM, Ti Kan <ti at amb.org> wrote:

> Thanks Steve,  I'll try your suggestions.
> 
> -Ti
> 
> On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 11:03:31PM -0700, k1drbar wrote:
>> Grrrr ... I feel your pain Ti!  I had a similar issue with a rear wheel on
>> my motorcycle, except that one bent the wheel badly enough that the tire
>> wouldn't hold air.  In my case it was the city of San Jose ... and the
>> windmills seemed large enough that I didn't battle them, but I did learn
>> that they had insurance for this.  
>> 
>> I found a contact link for the county:
>> 
>>    http://www.sccgov.org/rda/attachments/master_contacts_list.pdf
>> 
>> You might want to ask the "roads at countyroads.org" folks to see what they
>> would recommend.  One of the supervisors is a neighbor with whom I'm pretty
>> familiar, if you don't get any response I can contact him.  
>> 
>> I've also had pretty good luck with the Roadshow guy at the Mercury News ...
>> even if he doesn't print your letter in the paper he may provide some useful
>> info.  
>> 
>> You may want to contact your insurance company too ... I don't know if this
>> comes under any sort of reduced deductible due to it being a road hazard,
>> but even if it is not something that they would cover they may have some
>> suggestions for you ... 
>> 
>> Good luck!
>> Steve Buchholz
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ba-group-bounces at audifans.com [mailto:ba-group-bounces at audifans.com]
>> On Behalf Of Ti Kan
>> Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 10:20 PM
>> To: ba-group at audifans.com
>> Subject: [ba] road repair trench = tire damage
>> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> Last Tuesday night I was driving in my S4, westbound on Central
>> Expressway in Sunnyvale where there is some road work between Fair Oaks
>> and Mathilda Aves., they had dug a series of open trenches across the
>> whole width of the road.  I wasn't aware of them until I came upon
>> the first (and worst) one which caused a violent tire crash.
>> Other than reduced speed signs (normal 50mph, now 40mph), the
>> lanes were open to traffic and the trenches did not have any covering.
>> 
>> The car seemed to drive fine afterwards so I didn't pay too much
>> attention until a couple days later, I discovered a pronounced
>> bulge on the sidewall of my left front tire.  I can't see any
>> obvious signs of damage on the other tires.  I'm surprised that
>> my Avus wheels took that without bending.
>> 
>> I went back to the location yesterday and found that they had paved
>> over the trenches.  I was going to take some photos but not sure
>> if it's going to be any help now.
>> 
>> These are Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 235/40R18 Y tires which are around
>> $250 each (Tire Rack price) after shipping/mounting/balancing, and
>> I am probably looking at replacing the front pair at minimum, so it's
>> not exactly pocket change.  I don't have road hazard warranty on
>> the tires, so I am looking at possible options.
>> 
>> So, does anyone have any experience or knowledge about whether I could
>> file a claim on the government?  Central Expressway is a Santa Clara
>> County highway, but I didn't find anything relevant on their website.
>> Googling didn't yield anything specific to Santa Clara either.
>> 
>> Any ideas are welcome.
>> 
>> -Ti
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Audifans ba-group mailing list
> Send posts to: mailto:ba-group at audifans.com
> Manage your list connection: http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/ba-group
> 
> You can help keep the audifans site running by shopping at http://audifans.com/shop/
>