Over $1 million in pothole claims made against SCDOT in FY 2025-26

By RICK BRUNDRETT

In fiscal year 2025-26, at least 954 pothole damage or injury claims totaling more than $1 million were filed against the S.C. Department of Transportation, though less than half of them were approved with much smaller collective payouts, records provided to The Nerve show.

Out of the 954 claims for incidents that occurred from July 29, 2025, through April 30 of this year, 349, or about 37%, were listed as approved with $174,060 in total settlements, which represented less than 17% of the overall $1,067,016 in claims, The Nerve’s review found.

Another 374 claims, or 39% of the total, were denied, while 228 cases were pending and three were appealed, according to DOT records, which were provided in May to The Nerve under the state Freedom of Information Act.

Even if all of the full amounts of the listed pending and appealed claims are eventually approved and combined with the earlier approved payouts, it would represent less than half of the overall claim amount for the period, The Nerve's review found.

The state’s fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30 of the following year.

The single-largest claim filed in fiscal 2025-26 as of April 30 of this year was $20,000 in Richland County; statewide, the median amount, or midway point out of the 954 claims, was $549, The Nerve’s review found. The top single payout for the period was $5,842 in Aiken County; statewide, the average was $185.

Following are the 10 counties with the highest total amount of claims stemming from incidents through April 30, according to DOT records: Richland ($192,929); Charleston ($134,669); Spartanburg ($90,875); Anderson ($61,477); Aiken ($51,717); Florence ($45,370); Lexington ($44,110); York ($42,986); Berkeley ($41,101); and Dorchester ($33,751).

The DOT records included no identities of the claimants. The pothole cases were among at least 1,694 claims totaling more than $7.2 million filed last fiscal year against DOT. The claims included a variety of listed causes, such as “road hazard,” “construction,” or “work crew,” though designated pothole claims were the single-largest category, records show.

The Nerve in recent years has been tracking pothole claims statewide, revealing last year, for example, that from January 2020 through last July, 11,588 pothole claims totaling $43.5 million were filed, of which 5,112, or 44%, were approved with a collective $4.7 million in settlements.

State law generally caps settlements against government agencies at $300,000 for one claimant and a collective $600,000 for multiple claims arising from a single occurrence – ceilings that have remained in effect for nearly 30 years.

The Nerve in April revealed that DOT records showed from fiscal 2020 through December 2025, the agency claimed it filled as many as eight million potholes statewide, though the records didn’t specify whether a pothole was repaired multiple times.

“We remain committed to quickly responding to issues reported to us,” DOT spokeswoman Kelly Moore said in a written response Friday to The Nerve, noting that while state law allows 180 days for the agency to respond to damage claims, “our current average is significantly less.”

The Nerve separately has a pending request to DOT under the state’s open-records law for other pothole records and documents.

Big payouts

In analyzing pothole claims, The Nerve reviewed recent settlements listed in state Insurance Reserve Fund (IRF) records provided in May under the Freedom of Information Act.

The IRF, which provides liability and property insurance for participating state and local government agencies, is a division of the State Fiscal Accountability Authority. The authority is overseen by a five-member board chaired by the governor.

In her written response to The Nerve, DOT spokeswoman Moore said any claim against the agency “above $2,500 or involving personal injury goes to the IRF.”

The Nerve’s review found that of closed claims from April 1, 2025, through March 31 of this year, the IRF approved 60 out of 125 “Manhole Pothole Drain” (MPD) claims against DOT, with paid losses totaling $976,986. Payments ranged from $312 to $150,000; in the other 65 cases, no paid losses were listed in the records.

The records didn’t specify whether the MPD claims were solely related to potholes, though they listed lawsuits in 16 of the cases. The paid losses in those cases included:

·       $150,000: The case involved a bicyclist who suffered “severe and permanent injuries” when she hit a “deep pothole” on Beverly Drive in Berkeley County in 2018, according to the complaint.

·       $125,000: The case involved a moped driver who suffered “serious bodily injuries and damages” when, as he approached the intersection of Hagood Avenue and Line Street in Charleston County in 2023, he “encountered a portion of the roadway that was in such a state of disrepair and neglect that it had multiple holes, ruts, dips, bumps, cracks, changes in elevation, and uneven surfaces,” according to the complaint.

·       $76,250: The case involved a commercial tow truck driver who was hauling a disabled trash truck on Interstate 77 in Lexington County in 2022 when his vehicle “suddenly and without warning" struck a “large pothole in the middle of the interstate,” causing him to lose control of the tow truck, which resulted in the disabled trash truck flipping over, “spilling trash all over the road and causing significant damage,” according to the complaint.

·       $50,000: The case involved a motorcyclist who hit a pothole on the Robert Grissom Parkway in Horry County in 2023, injuring him and damaging his motorcycle. “The failure to repair the pothole posed a severe safety hazard to the motoring public,” according to the complaint, which included a picture of the pothole in question.

·       $35,000: The case involved a motorist who struck a large pothole on United Drive in Berkeley County in 2022, causing his vehicle to run off the road and slam “head-on” into a tree. Before the accident, “several complaints were made regarding potholes on United Drive and several requests were made to repair the road or fill in the potholes,” according to the complaint.

Road funding issues

Since S.C. lawmakers in 2017 approved increasing the state’s base gasoline tax by 12 cents per gallon over six years, The Nerve repeatedly has pointed out the slow pace of repairs to the state’s crumbling roads and bridges, while a special fund created with the tax hike has accumulated huge reserves.

As of May 31 this year, DOT records show that the cash balance of the fund totaled $1.24 billion, though the agency maintains that the reserves are designated for pending vendor payments.

In an analysis published last Oct. 3, the South Carolina Policy Council – the parent organization of The Nerve – revealed, citing federal statistics, that road quality statewide trended downward from 2013 to 2023, while spending by the state DOT and County Transportation Committees increased dramatically, far outpacing inflation.

The Policy Council recommended that proposals in a 2016 audit by the state Legislative Audit Council (LAC) – the Legislature’s investigative arm – be implemented. Among other findings, the LAC said DOT was not prioritizing repair projects on a worst-first basis.

Among other DOT reforms, a Senate bill, which Gov. Henry McMaster signed into law in May this year, established a “Pothole Mitigation Program” that requires DOT to spend $15 million annually from revenues generated by the 2017 gas-tax-hike law for "full depth pavement repairs of repetitive potholes," specifying that the funds "shall be in addition to existing funds allocated for pavement rehabilitation."

Under the program, DOT is supposed to make "permanent" repairs of potholes on state-maintained roads within seven days of receiving reports from the public, with certain exceptions allowing for temporary repairs. DOT on its website says a damage claim can be eligible in part if the agency “did not correct the condition in a reasonable time,” though the website doesn’t define “reasonable.”

In her written response Friday to The Nerve, DOT spokeswoman Moore said that to comply with the new law, the agency is developing a statewide app that will “allow citizens to share road concerns, specifically potholes, with us directly.”

Moore said while citizens currently can make claims – which she noted typically are “reviewed and addressed within two business days” – through DOT’s online portal or by calling its service center, the app under development will “allow additional opportunities for community members to share those issues with us directly.”

In other related legislation, under a joint resolution signed into law in May, $139.5 million of the Capital Reserve Fund – one of the state’s two main “rainy day” funds – was allocated to DOT for bridge “modernization.”

Meanwhile, as The Nerve reported last month, lawmakers failed to pass a new state budget for the fiscal year that started July 1, instead relying on a joint resolution passed in May to keep state government running at recurring fiscal 2025-26 levels. A six-member, joint House-Senate conference committee was scheduled to meet again this week to work on a compromise between the separate budget versions.

Filing pothole claims

Motorists who want to request potholes to be fixed can contact DOT online or by calling the agency’s customer service center at 855-467-2368.  

To have an eligible road-defect claim against DOT, the damage must have occurred on a state-maintained road; the agency must have known about the defect or condition before the damage occurred; and the agency didn’t correct the problem in a “reasonable time,” according to its website.

In submitting claim applications, which have to be done online or mailed within one year from the incident date, motorists must provide two repair estimates or a paid itemized receipt, as well as the vehicle registration, with photos of the damage optional, the site says.

If the damage claim is within DOT’s jurisdiction, an investigator for the county in which the damage occurred will review the application, investigate the claim, and make a recommendation to DOT’s headquarters, according to the website. Claims below a “monetary threshold” – $2,500, according to agency spokeswoman Moore – are reviewed by DOT’s legal office; claims above that amount are referred to the IRF, the site says.

If a claim is approved, the S.C. Treasurer’s Office will issue a check to the claimant within 10 business days of the notification of the decision, according to the website.

Brundrett is the news editor of The Nerve (www.thenerve.org). Contact him at 803-394-8273 or [email protected]. Follow The Nerve on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) @thenervesc.

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