France has long been a benchmark in terms of the quality of its road infrastructure, rising to the top of the ranking of 141 countries established by the World Economic Forum. But now the deterioration of infrastructure, observed on a daily basis by road users, has caused France to fall from first place in 2012 to 18th place in 2019.
Last year, the Court of Auditors also sounded the alarm on the state of the roads and the increasing disengagement of the State in their maintenance.
Thus, according to the National Interministerial Road Safety Observatory, today around 30% of fatal accidents are directly linked to a road defect: potholes, cracks, missing or erased signs, cracks, lack of grip, etc.
French legislation, however, provides for the responsibility of the administration responsible for road maintenance (the State, the departments or the municipalities) to compensate the victims of a road accident caused by a “lack of normal maintenance”. » of the roadway. For this, we must succeed in proving the responsibility of the administration, but that is another story.
Despite all the possibilities offered to administrations to exonerate themselves from their responsibility, the cost of these maintenance defects is expensive.
In cities, it is often the municipal insurers who cover compensation. In Paris, where the municipality is its own insurer, the city paid out no less than 2 million euros last year for accidents on defective public roads.
However, the capital has not skimped on the road maintenance budget since, according to David Belliard, the deputy in charge of the transformation of public space and roads, the budget increased from 14,8, 2018 million euros in 33 to 2022 million euros in 4, more than doubled in just XNUMX years.
