Amey
'Dalek' may be a rather exciting name for a piece of highway maintenance machinery, but that is the name of one pothole fixing device currently being trialled in the village of Clifton, Bedfordshire.
It will cost an estimated £12bn to fix the UK's potholes, which is perhaps why the government is looking into the Dalek, which can apparently fix a pothole in under 2 minutes – making it thirty times quicker than the one hour it takes to complete a repair in the old way.
As well as making driving an unpleasant experience, running over potholes can reduce the life of certain components on your car. In the worst cases, you may find it precipitates a call to your breakdown cover provider when you least expect it.
Central to the Dalek’s operation is a robotic arm that is fixed to the front of a truck. This then fills potholes with the requisite amounts of tar and gravel.
While we Brits have termed the machine the 'Dalek', the Americans – who dreamt up the device in the first place – call it the 'Pothole Killer'.
The equipment is controlled using a joystick – much in the same way as the BBC baddie robots of the same name.
How are potholes made?
Potholes occur on a road surface when water finds its way under the asphalt. The water then affects the structural integrity of the soil that supports the tarmac. Continued traffic use places increased pressure over this gap, eventually causing the asphalt to split or break – resulting in a pothole.
Breakdown Cover from 
