If you've driven anywhere around Victoria recently, you've probably played a tense game of dodge the crater on your local commute. The conversation went live on 3AW Melbourne, where our General Manager, Jordan Gesundheit, hopped on air to talk about a massive, unexpected surge in road damage reports.
The most fascinating part of the data? One specific Victorian region is leading the pack by a landslide.
The 3AW segment painted a vivid picture of where Victorians are actively using Snap Send Solve to flag uneven tarmac and road defects:
- Over the past eight weeks, road damage reports across Victoria surged by 151% compared to the exact same time last year.
- The Mornington Peninsula is officially the state's reporting powerhouse right now, accounting for nearly 50% of all road damage complaints logged over those two months.
- Looking at the bigger picture over the last 12 months, pothole and damaged road notifications have climbed by an average of 30% statewide.
- The peninsula isn’t entirely alone, inner Melbourne and the outer western suburbs are also tracking well above the state average for road defects.
When the host jokingly asked if Peninsula residents just love to "dob in their roads" more than anyone else, Jordan pointed out that this localised data actually serves a much bigger purpose for our suburbs.
"Our hope is that we can just be the voice of the community and then the relevant agency can use that data to help inform their decisions and make sure that they're investing that money wisely," Jordan said.
One of the best moments of the chat was when the host openly vented about the traditional way of reporting road issues, navigating 20 different automated phone menus, sitting on hold, and repeating the same details to your local council.
That friction is exactly why our community of Snappers is growing so rapidly through organic word of mouth. As Jordan shared on air, when neighbours help neighbours bypass the red tape, good things happen:
"Someone's complaining on Facebook... about a pothole or a street sign that's down... and someone else will come and say, 'Hey, you should go and download Snap Send Solve.' Because when I use that app, magic seems to happen and things seem to get done a lot of the time."
While we love that it feels like magic to our Snapper, our underlying platform acts as a steady facilitator.
Check out the full segment below:
