Potholes: Slow Before, Not In

Potholes are routine on Kenyan roads, tarmac and murram alike, and the correct handling is a two-part rule most drivers get half right.

Slow down before it, not in it. Braking is done in the clear road ahead of the pothole, while the tyres still have an undisturbed surface to work with. That's where you have grip and control to spend.

Don't brake sharply inside it. Two reasons, and they compound:

• Under braking the vehicle's weight pitches forward onto the front suspension, so the front wheel enters the hole already compressed and loaded — which makes the impact harder and the damage worse, exactly the kind of strike that bends geometry and knocks out alignment (the pothole-aftermath check exists for this).
• A locked or heavily braked wheel dropping into a hole can snatch the steering, and the sudden jolt through the wheel is what turns a pothole into a loss of control rather than a bang.

So the sequence is: see it early, brake early, then come off the brakes and roll through with the wheel held firm and straight. Where the pothole is avoidable and the road is genuinely clear, steering around it is better still — but only if that manoeuvre doesn't put you into oncoming traffic or onto the verge, which brings us straight to the next sub-topic, because swerving for a pothole is one of the commonest ways drivers drop a wheel off the edge.

Afterwards, check. A hard strike is enough to damage a tyre sidewall, dent a rim or knock the alignment out — the symptoms and the check are in Steering, Suspension & What Failure Feels Like.