What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks

Pot-hilling

Could you please repeat your advice for driving over speed bumps to reduce tyre damage (which I have read many times in your column but have not kept the printed page) so that I can pass it on to some male drivers of my acquaintance who refuse to believe a woman can know anything worth knowing about driving.

Asked on 6 February 2010 by J.C., via e-mail

Answered by Honest John
Advice for driving over speed cushions ('pot hills'): One wheel over the cushion, one wheel on the flat road. If you try to minimise the hump by straddling the hump’s chamfered edges you wear away
the inner shoulders of your car tyres: damage you would not normally see that could result in a high-speed blowout on the motorway. Be particularly careful of chamfered edges of speed cushions in the snow because they could cause your car to slip sideways into an adjacent parked car, in which case whoever installed the speed cushions would be directly liable. After the frosts, watch out for crumbled edges of speed cushions because these can lacerate the inner shoulders of tyres on one pass.
Similar questions
I read with interest your coverage of damage caused by road humps. Although we have some in towns around here in the New Forest, most of the damage to wheels, tyres and suspension seems to be caused by...
Can I claim from the council for damage to my car from speed humps? I have a Volkswagen Touran and after I went over a hump I heard a noise and later a message came up on the dash saying 'stop oil problem'....
I'm probably not going to get any sympathy, but being a builder I drive a van. I don't have explain what happens when you traverse four speed humps with a van full of tools and materials. Unpleasant is...