State officials use your tax money to pay off millions of dollars in accident claims.

For example, court records show that in:

• February 2016, a driver hit a pothole near Myrtle Beach, lost control of his pickup truck, crossed the center line and hit an oncoming vehicle.

DOT last year paid $150,000 in damages and $11,407 in legal expenses.

• January 2017, a Spartanburg bicyclist suffered serious injury when she swerved to avoid a pothole and hit another bicycle.

DOT paid claims of $162,500 and legal expenses of $123,982.

In both lawsuits, the injured said the Department of Transportation was negligent in failing to maintain the roads and warning the public about the potholes.

The Insurance Reserve Fund pays damage claims against state and local government agencies and covers public property losses.

Our review of IRF records from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019, found that the fund paid at least $5.4 million in damages for all types of claims in 1,017 DOT cases, plus more than $2 million in legal expenses.

That included 569 claims of nearly $2.2 million in damages and $747,000 in legal expenses in “Manhole, Pothole, Drain” costs.

DOT claimed in its 2018 annual report that it had filled about 411,000 potholes statewide that year.

But citing agency records, we revealed the figure was an estimate based on the amount of asphalt that the department said was used to fill an average size pothole.

The agency contended it had patched about 43,000 potholes statewide in January and February this year as part of its heavily promoted “Pothole Blitz.”

But DOT Director Christy Hall acknowledged that was an estimate, not a count.

Lawmakers promised the money from their 2017 law raising the state gas tax 12 cents a gallon over 6 years would be used to fix the state’s pothole-riddled roads and crumbling bridges.

But DOT has spent relatively little on potholes and plans to use gas taxes to widen interstates.

On its website, DOT advises that to file damage claims, you should fill out a claim form and submit it to a DOT maintenance office with 2 repair estimates or a paid invoice within a year of the incident. The department or its insurance carrier has 180 days to decide whether to pay it.

Brundrett is news editor of The Nerve. Contact him at 803-254-4411 or rick@thenerve.org