I don't think so. Dutch highways don't have potholes at all (we don't even have a word for them). It's all a matter of build quality and maintenance schedules, I guess. (Probably helps here that highways are built and maintained by the same org that does the dikes, where sloppiness is not an option)
Is traffic particularly bad in the Netherlands? Public transport there seemed really good and population density is only 8M in a 50km radius vs almost 15M in London and 13M in Los Angeles. We’re only about 6M in the Bay Area but public transport is a joke so drive a lot more.
Traffic is a bit worse than average for Europe but better than the London area or bits of Germany. In between LA and the Bay Area for severity, I think? People do still travel a lot by car for work, although we don't have the weight of shorter trips for school etc because people bike for those.
We drive about twice as much in the Bay Area compared to the Netherlands - 10k miles annually per capita vs 5k miles (8000km). I guess the maintenance budget is spread more thinly. Probably realistic for Britain (6k miles) to get to the Dutch level if it chose to spend the money.
But the Bay Area is basically the richest place on Earth, twice as rich as here. If the maintenance budget doesn’t stretch to good roads, that’s 100% a policy choice, no?
Maintenance is largely paid for in local salary so wealth is mostly spent on the higher salaries for workers.
Paris traffic without the charming chaos.