Melbourne woman is lucky to be alive after road ‘death trap’ cost her $10,000

Exclusive: A deadly pothole crisis is plaguing roads across Australia.

Dilapidated and crumbling roadways and streets are troubling drivers in every state and territory, with potholes becoming a costly death trap often resulting in thousands of dollars in damage.

Research conducted in nine.com.au’s Your Local, Your Say survey found nearly 40 per cent of readers said poorly-maintained roads are their number one “frustration” with their suburb.

But rural Australians are facing even more dangerous conditions.

A whopping 79 per cent of people living in rural areas say potholes are a chronic issue.

Melbourne motorbike rider Simoen van der Meent said she is lucky to be alive after she skidded into potholes while riding 80km/h down Murray River Road in north-eastern Victoria.

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She had been riding her antique Harley Davidson with a group in March when the road ahead of her suddenly looked like the “craters of the moon”.

“It was really bad, because we had suffered a lot of rain, that bit of road was terrible,” van der Meent told nine.com.au.

“By the time I saw the holes, it was too late. I just bounced around like crazy, lost control of the bike and went flying across the opposite side of the road.

“If there had been oncoming cars, I could have died.”

By some miracle, van der Meent was uninjured.

One of her fellow riders wasn’t so lucky. He was taken to the ICU in a coma and spent a week in hospital recovering.

While she walked away unscathed, van der Meent’s vintage motorbike suffered around $10,000 in damage.

“They’re a real collector’s bike, so it’s about replacing the vintage parts,” she added.

She submitted a claim with VicRoads to claw back some of the money but is still waiting to hear back two months on.

Drivers around Victoria, which has some of Australia’s worst pothole-riddled roads, are forking out thousands for car damage.

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Wodonga woman Tabitha Triplet said her tyres have been repeatedly shredded by metre-long potholes on the Murray Valley Highway in northern Victoria.

She has spent around $3400 over the past 18 months fixing the damage to her car from travelling back-and-forth on the pothole-riddled roadway.

“There are some I am aware of that I know to dodge, which are larger than one of my tyres, and on a 100 kilometre roadway… so I can only imagine what would happen if you didn’t know about it and hit it.,” Triplett told nine.com.au.

“My vehicle shouldn’t sustain any damage from a public road. I have paid more in damages than rego.

“What’s my rego being used for and why should I pay it?”

Melbourne man Andrew Reilly also spent $3000 on his car after a pothole on the Hume Freeway, south of Tallarook in central Victoria, damaged his tyre, rim and suspension.

He was driving 110km/ph when he suddenly skidded into the cavity.

“It took over a year for Vic Roads to process the claim and I got $900 back,” he said.

Under Victorian law, there is a mandatory property damage threshold of $1681 for damage caused by hazards like potholes.

Anything under this amount and motorists need to cover their own repairs.

There can be a months-long waiting list for drivers who have lodged claims.

During the recent state budget, the Victorian government pumped more than $1 billion into a road repair fund to fix the state’s crumbling roadways.

But the problem extends far beyond Victoria.

Plotting potholes around Australia

Smart city app Snap Send Solve, which lets users report issues to their local council, recorded nearly 95,000 pothole and damaged-road reports around Australia in the 12 months to March 2026.

This marks a 31 per cent jump from the previous period.

Victoria has the worst roads in the country, according to the app’s data, with 33,115 reports from this state alone.

NSW came in second, with 22,291 reports, while Queensland ranked third with 19,441 reports.

While Snap Send Solve found most reports are from metro areas, regional residents are increasingly unhappy with the state of their roads.

In the Northern Territory, road-defect reports more than doubled during the 12-month period.

Snap Send Solve’s chief executive Danny Gorog said it is no surprise that potholes are infecting roadways across Australia.

And he warned it may get even worse.

“More people are driving, the weather conditions are getting more challenging,” he explained, adding that major flood events or stretches of rain contribute to a jump in pothole reports.

“People are also more sensitive to damage to their cars and are more conscious of the road, so that also contributes to reports becoming more frequent.”

Residents blame trucks, slow councils

NSW woman Dee regularly drives to her holiday home in Stuarts Point, a small hamlet on the NSW Mid North Coast.

She told nine.com.au that trucks “roaring” down the avenue near her property have shredded the asphalt, regularly puncturing it with dangerous potholes.

Dee described the state of the road as “shocking”, but claimed Kempsey Shire Council is yet to provide a solution.

“The council very rarely fixes the holes, and the issue that we have is the whole place basically shakes because the roads are so dodgy,” Dee said.

“People have done renovations, and their windows have broken… the amount of damage done by the potholes is ridiculous.”

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Most councils are responding to complaints. Gorog said the rate of “solved” pothole reports is steadily growing.

Around 89 per cent of reported issues have been resolved.

Gorog encouraged drivers to report road issues as soon as possible. Because, as the old saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

“And if the council doesn’t know, they can never be fixed,” he added.