Potholes caused by this winter's severe weather have led to a surge in car insurance claims, according to the AA.
The motoring organisation says that during February alone it received 67 claims for accidental damage relating to potholes, up from 25 in the same month last year and just 11 in the milder weather of February 2008.
It estimates that, with damage claims from among its one-million insurance customers averaging £1,500, the total cost to UK car insurers from pothole damage was £2.85 million during February. However, it added that this cost was "the tip of the iceberg", as less expensive problems would not make a claim worthwhile to policyholders.
But while the organisation noted that many councils were struggling to foot the bill for emergency repairs needed to the road network, it said that so-called 'pothole taxes' - such as an additional council tax increase introduced by North Yorkshire County Council - were "hard to swallow".
"Emergency funding is desperately needed to stop the plague of potholes," said AA president Edmund King, though he added that motorists already paid £46 billion per year in "various motoring taxes", of which only a small proportion was spent on the roads.
Branding any increase in local taxation as "highway robbery", King reiterated his call for repair work to be funded through money the Government makes in fuel taxation.
"The Government intends to increase fuel duty on 1 April by approximately 2.5 pence per litre," he added.
"If this fuel windfall was diverted into pothole repairs then all of the UK's potholes could be funded and filled in 100 days."
The proposal reinforces a suggestion made by the AA in January, when it claimed that the extra tax generated by unseasonably high fuel prices could be used to fix the UK's crumbling roads over a similar period.
