Interesting to see reported in the Shropshire Star recently that the cost of repairing potholes in their area is £870,000 each year.

Officials invest a small fortune on roads that fall into disrepair,

The cost for the county’s two councils varies dramatically because they have different lengths of road to maintain.

Shropshire Council spends £700,000 patching potholes across its extensive road network while Telford & Wrekin commits just £170,000 on its smaller network.

Both councils also follow a national code, to make sure the worst potholes are repaired within 24 hours.

A local councillor commented “We undertake safety inspections on adopted roads at least once a year. The busiest roads and areas are surveyed each month, other roads and areas are surveyed less frequently.”

He said: “Once a pothole has been identified, it is assigned a grade related to its risk which sets the timescales for repair.

“The highest risks are repaired within 24 hours however the lowest risk potholes will be repaired as part of our future works programme.”

With the bad weather now setting in, you can be sure that this situation will only become worse before it gets better, as all the recent rain and now the much colder weather, has a dramatic effect on the condition of our roads. Which is where the need for greater observations come to the fore on your driving lessons, the last thing you need is to only see the pothole just as you are about to go into it.

Getting ready for winter? It’s hard to believe that as of saturday night the clocks go back an hour! I don’t know why, but the light nights just seem to have lasted forever this year.

But the change in the clocks brings its own unique problems when you are on a Driving Lesson. If you are in a major city like Wolverhampton, Luton or Walsall, then all around you is a sea of lights. Cars, buses, lorries, Street lights, Buildings and Office lights, Xmas lights the list is never ending!

And in amongst this madness, lurks pedestrians and cyclists. It becomes a real life version of the hazard perception test. When pupils are on a driving lesson, they have so much more to contend with and yet you and i as pedestrians will just presume, that, because they have the headlights on, and because we may have bright clothing on, we can be seen.

Unfortunately this is not the case! Most times its hard for the instructor to see clearly, let alone the poor pupil, whose brain is about 2 seconds away from total melt-down.

So please remember this as you walk around on the forthcoming evenings, and spare a thought for that poor pupil on their driving lesson.