Every driver needs to know how to deal with potholes, because they are literally everywhere. You never know when you’re going to encounter one, and hitting a pothole can damage your car. In fact, potholes are a common road hazard. Avoiding potholes is your best bet, but if you can’t, it’s good to at least know the right way to drive over them. What you want to do is straighten your wheel and roll right through the pothole—hitting potholes at an angle increases the risk for damage to your vehicle.

Avoiding Potholes

The smart way to deal with potholes it to avoid them in the first place. That way they can’t hurt your car—not to mention you and your passengers. But potholes aren’t always easy to detect. Here are three important ways you can spot and steer clear of potholes:

1. Keep your Distance: Maintain distance between your car and the car ahead of you. Distance between you and the car in front gives you a better view of the road before you. This increases the likelihood of detecting the pothole early enough to drive around it. It also makes it easier to prevent a collision should the vehicle ahead make a sudden maneuver to avoid a pothole.
2. Give Visibility a Boost: Making sure you have good visibility is an effective way to avoid potholes. Look out into the distance at the road and the car in front of you. This gives you time to prepare yourself for navigating any potholes up ahead. To ensure better visibility for night-driving, check your headlights from time to time to make sure they’re in good working order. Keep your windshield spotless for best visibility at night.
3. Stay Away from Puddles: That puddle on the road could be just that: an innocent puddle of water. But in fact, a pothole provides the perfect place for water to pool. So if you’re driving along and you see a puddle, don’t go through it. A puddle could easily be a water-filled pothole.

Driving Through Potholes

While avoidance is the best way to deal with potholes, sometimes they can’t be avoided. If you have no choice but to drive over a pothole, make sure you know how. The proper driving techniques can help you to protect or at least minimize any damage to your vehicle from potholes.

Here are some tips for safer driving as you deal with potholes, head on:

• Slow and Coast: When you see a pothole up ahead, slow down, and then release the breaks before impact. Applying the brakes while your vehicle is in the pothole can mean greater damage to your car. It’s far better to slow down and let your car coast over the pothole. Reducing speed before hitting a pothole allows your car’s suspension to reach full function to better dissipate energy and help absorb the impact.
• Slower Driving in Pothole Territory: Some streets are infamous for being riddled with potholes. If you have to drive on streets with lots of potholes, take it slow. Slower driving gives you more time to maneuver around and deal with potholes. Going slower is easier on your car when you do hit potholes.
• Keep a Firm Grip on the Steering Wheel: It’s all too easy to lose control of your vehicle when driving over potholes. When you’ve got no choice but to hit a pothole, make sure you have a firm hold on the steering wheel to help you maintain control of your car.
• Hit it Head On: It’s a natural instinct to drive at an angle as you approach a pothole to try to avoid it. When hitting a pothole is inevitable, resist temptation and instead, straighten your wheel, to directly hit the pothole, and allow your car to roll right through it. Hitting the car at an angle increases the risk of damage to your car.
• Maintenance and Your Suspension: A well-working suspension is of utmost importance in protecting your car and the people in it, in the event that you hit a pothole. Make sure you have a qualified auto mechanic check out your car’s suspension according to a regular schedule. The things that cushion a car in case of impact are shocks, springs, and struts.
• Healthy Tires, Proper Inflation: A tire either under- or over-inflated is going to take more of a beating as it makes contact with potholes. Tires that are worn out or have sidewall bulging will also not do well on encountering potholes. Deal with potholes by protecting your car before you hit one, with proper tire maintenance.