Risk Management: Avoiding Pothole Damage

There’s nothing like the smell of the grass after a long, hard rainstorm or the sunshine glistening water off the trees.  The problem is that storms also leave another present — potholes. And if you’ve hit one before, you know that dreaded feeling; the heavy thud, praying for the flat-tire light doesn’t come on, listening for the telling grinding of some loose part in your car.

Pothole damage accounts for nearly 500,000 insurance claims every year, so here are some tips to avoid potholes:

• Leaving more space between you and the driver ahead of you. This is just general good driving practice, but it comes in handy avoiding potholes too. After all, the more space between you and the other guy, the more likely you are to notice a pothole and calmly dodge it.
• Slowing down. Ratchet your speed back a little bit to improve your reaction time. Also, hitting a pothole at lower speeds typically doesn’t cause as much or as serious damage as hitting one at higher speeds.
• Watching out for water. After a rainstorm or snow, potholes can fill with water. That makes them harder to see and harder to judge how deep they are.