Fed-up drivers are having their say as this street in Inverness looks more like Swiss cheese than a smooth road.
With more than 100 potholes in just 75 yards, fuming motorists say there are so many they can’t avoid them – and taxi drivers find other routes.
Now residents and workers have demanded the local authority urgently repairs the holes – including one nine-and-a-half-foot gouge.
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Red Cross community support worker Patricia Macdonald drives her red VW Polo down Dunabban Road, Inverness, every day with her 13-year-old bearded collie, Jack.
She said: “I come down this road about four times a day with my poor dog in the car and it’s horrendous. I’ve been using the road for about four years and it’s just got worse.
“It used to be you could avoid the potholes, but you can’t any more. They’ve definitely got to do something.
“I drive all around and there are some other bad streets – but this is the worst.”
In all, there are more than100 potholes of varying size and depth over about 75 yards including one gouge almost as long as a nearby Mazda CX-3. The residential street is not far from Merkinch Primary School.
Ms Macdonald’s colleague Miriam MacDonald has a new blue Peugeot 308. She said: “It’s a nightmare. But we need our cars for our work, and we have to come through this way. You’ve got to slow right down – you just can’t avoid them.”
Resident Ian McTeer, 60, a piano teacher, said: “I don’t drive but I’ve noticed the surface is very uneven. It’s rough and not satisfactory.”
One taxi driver, who asked not to be named, said: “We’ve stopped coming down this road now.”
Another local resident said: “I ride a bike and it’s very dangerous for cyclists – especially at night. I’ve never seen so many potholes in such a wee bit of road. It must be the worst in Scotland.”
Jack Cousens, head of roads policy at the AA, said it received lots of reports on scarified or “moon-like” roads and said Dunabban Road sounded like one of the worst affected:
“It’s certainly up there.
“A road like that we would much rather it be resurfaced completely than it become a patchwork quilt – that way the structural integrity of the road is maintained.
“It sounds like far too many [potholes] and, whilst it’s a pain for drivers, something like that can be incredibly hazardous, indeed fatal, for cyclists and motorcyclists.”
Highland Council said: “We have a number of roads safety issues occurring currently (primarily potholes) and we are prioritising these accordingly.
“Streets with lighter traffic flows and lower speed limits such as Dunabban Road are lower on the priority list.
“We will however programme emergency patching to address the worst of the defects at the start of week commencing 18th Feb.”
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