Westchester County is responding, making changes and offering tips on how residents can avoid getting socked with pricey car repair bills after a recent Turn To Tara probe.

As News 12 previously reported, all claims for county reimbursements to drivers whose tires popped on roadways or due to potholes were denied in the past three years.

The county and its new administration set out to discover why the claims were denied.

Westchester’s new county attorney John Nonna explained there were two reasons why the claims were denied. He said that some of the claims involved damaged roads that aren’t maintained by the county.  Other issues happened in problem spots that the county didn’t know about. Nonna is advising residents to report the bad spots.

“We have a law that says the county cannot be liable for a defective road unless it has prior written notice...because the county doesn't have enough personnel to patrol roads constantly,” says Nonna.

Nonna says in each of the 34 claims that were made this year, even though they were all denied, road crews were out the next day to fix them.

He did admit that their notification process is a bit archaic and says a plan is in the works to create a link on the county website to make reporting pothole problems faster and easier. He says it will also reduce the chances of anyone needing to make a claim at all.