A Norwich man has been left at the end of his tether after a huge pothole caused damage to his car that ended up taking weeks to fix.
Steve Frost, who lives in the Thickthorn area, was driving his 85-year-old mother home to the south-west Norfolk village of Mundford after visiting his father in hospital in Bury St Edmunds.
In bad weather at 6pm on Tuesday, January 10, on the pitch-black B1106 in Culford north of Bury, the pair were met with a loud bang.
Finding out the tyre of their Mercedes-Benz C-Class was instantly flat, they rolled around the corner to find two cars in the same position - with damaged wheels and a flat tyre - and another two then followed.
Upon inspection, Steve found a pothole in the road measuring 10 inches deep and 24 by 12 inches in surface area which had stopped all the cars in their tracks.
"Thank God my mother wasn't on her own," said the 60-year-old.
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"I had to phone to police to let them know there could be a further accident."
The police called Suffolk County Council to report the pothole and thanks to the kindness of someone on scene, his mother was taken home while he waited to be recovered.
The pothole incident then turned into a saga that took six weeks to complete, with problems with insurers, repair work and no courtesy cars being available - leaving him to ride his Vespa scooter.
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He said: "This is where the whole thing starts.
"It's laughable, I was at the end of my tether.
"A one-hour job ended up taking five weeks because I hit a pothole."
Suffolk County Council said: "The pothole in this location has been repaired.
"Regular road inspections are carried out across our road network however we encourage anyone who sees a pothole to report it to us via highwaysreporting.suffolk.gov.uk."
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