These were the top three road issues motorists reported to RAA last year, through our Report A Road service.

Last year, RAA clocked up a lot of kilometres on behalf of our members and the wider community, by conducting 203 site visits to investigate reported problem areas, from Victor Harbor to Eudunda and everywhere in between.

From a total of 298 reports, RAA helped fix at least 47 road-related issues, by talking to the relevant authority (for example the local council or the state government) and campaigning for change.

The top 3 issues reported last year were:

Road surface (31% of all reports)

Intersection/road layout (23% of all reports)

Sunken manhole covers (21% of all reports)

These included an additional lane being marked at the southbound approach to the Henley Beach Rd/Seaview Rd roundabout, and changes to line marking at the intersection of Brighton Rd and Diagonal Rd after the installation of poorly marked turn lines.

The turn lines were a significant hazard to both motorists and cyclists, and following our recommendations, DPTI re-installed turn lines in a much safer layout.

Our road-safety experts are also still waiting to hear back from relevant road authorities on several other reports.

RAA’s Senior Manager of Road Safety Charles Mountain said that for the other flagged issues, there were a number of reasons why they didn’t end in ‘wins’.

“For reports where a ‘win’ is not recorded, quite often there’s no issue, or the issue (i.e. potholes) has already been rectified by the time we can investigate,” he said.

“Similarly, large scale nominations, such as for the entire length of a major road or highway, are not an easy or quick fix and will cost many millions of dollars to repair, but provide us with knowledge of these issues so we are able to lobby for improvements.

“In some circumstances, we are able to educate the member as to why certain changes may or may not have been implemented.”