Speaking at the 2015 TISPOL annual conference in Manchester, King warned that the deteriorating state of Europe's road pavements has become "a serious problem" and that the number of potholes is now an important road safety issue for the enforcement community. King spoke about a British soldier who recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan only to die on the UK roads when he swerved to avoid a pothole. He survived the Taliban, but he did not survive the deadly state of Europe's road surfaces, King said. And the problem is getting worse, particularly for the non-strategic highway network. Road maintenance funds allocated to local government are not ring-fenced properly, King told the conference, and the money often gets diverted elsewhere. Cuts in local government budgets will continue to make the situation worse.
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