There are a lot of manhole covers on the first section of my drive to work, and I commknly see people swerving all over the road just so their tires won’t touch them, even jeeps. Why?
Around me, they’re either 2 inches below the road surface, so a giant pothole, or 2 inches above the road surface, so a giant speed bump.
At least up north around where I live manhole covers are often also either holes or bumps in the road due to things shifting around from the freeze/thaw cycles. Basically potholes with a purpose. Hitting bumps is bad for your car, so that’s a pretty good reason to avoid them. Though I’d never swerve around a bump if I was going to come close to someone else, since that’s much more dangerous.
Because I drive the same way every day. I know which ones to avoid and which ones are fine. I also have to pay to do maintenance on my car. If I can move the steering wheel a few inches for certain covers rather than spend a weekend replacing suspension, I’ll do that.
After freezing temperatures, construction, and deferred maintenance, manhole covers can be a damaging obstruction
My car is only two years old, and the one time it needed work …. I hit one of the smaller pieces of road infrastructure - a gas valve maybe. But the pavement was broken up around it so it was a deep hole with a sharp metal edge. It destroyed my tire, a damn expensive tire
Edit to add: for my older car I just had to spend $1,500 replacing a control arm and ball joint. While there’s no way to identify a specific cause, trying to avoid obstructions is a possibility I can control
My favorite people are those who drive giant SUVs with huge tires lifted way off the ground who do this and also slow down to 2MPH to go over train tracks.
The funny part is that going slower makes the bump worse. Your shocks need to compress to work.
No. Slowing may make the bump feel worse to you )unless you do it right) while still being less strain on your suspension
No, you want your suspension to compress. That’s it’s job. But you want it to start compressing as it’s hitting the bump so it drops down on the other side instead of the whole car dipping.
And I’m not talking about going over it at 50mph. A lot of speed bumps will have a suggested speed posted near or are designed for the posted speed limit. And I’m talking about the people who are basically idling over the bump.
The smoothest transition with least chance of damaging suspension is ….
Mostly stop long enough for the car to stop leaning forward. Then gently accelerate of the bump. No dip, no damage
Meanwhile I’ve paid to enough suspension repairs to not want to hurry up another.
Huge tyres? Or huge rims.
Skinny tires on huge rims and a lift kit will self destruct pretty quickly. Pavement princess trucks are considerably less capable, ironically.
Huge tires, not rims. I get the big rim idiots babying their purchases. I’m talking about regular SUV tires.
Big tires don’t really help for that though, and lifts like that often have a tighter suspension and a rougher ride. The vehicle you want to drive fast over bumps would be some kind of luxury car that puts a lot of emphasis on having a smooth ride.
When I went to Mexico, none of them had the covers, just holes everywhere on the roads and sidewalks.
When I was a kid, I biked on a manhole cover. Right after I passed it, the manhole cover collapsed into the street.
That Final Destination fear never left me.
The manhole covers are lava!
Red alert! Red alert! Danger!
In my city, they just keep paving over the old asphalt, so the manhole covers are like 6 inches deep in some places. Hitting one of those in my sedan is not pleasant.
Tell me, what alignment is your car?
Chaotic neutral.
They’re hella loud when you hit them.
As someone who opens them regularly, because so many of the chimneys are collapsing and I regularly wonder how some haven’t caved in yet.
I’ve witnessed a failure like this once but it took a sunken brick crosswalk where we get frost heave into a U-shape with a flat manhole cover in the middle of one lane to get driven over for a couple years until one day the lip under the cover was so busted up it flipped the lid right out when my mom drove over it lol.
I was in Oklahoma one time and I opened a lid on a road and the whole lid fell in because the frame broke as I opened it. City was just kinda like “yeah that happens” and I’m like wtf do you mean that happens?!?! Their system was very very fucked though lol
Around here the chimneys are fine and the road around them has sunk so they stick up a couple inches above the road surface.
Maybe you and they are on opposite sides of the world so, when the chimneys sink on their side, the counterparts on your side are pushed out.
That’s kind of amusing to me IDK why
As others have said, it’s just not great for the car. Will it damage it if you hit one? Probably not. But if it’s your work route or other commonly taken route, you’re gonna hit it 260x in a year, and you’ll own the car for multiple years. It adds up quick. Plus, they aren’t always smooth to the ground or free of other pot holes and square edges. If you hit it hard enough or if it’s too sharp, jagged, or deep, you can damage the wheel, the suspension, and the tire itself, easily in the thousands of dollars to repair, along with not having a vehicle for up to a few weeks.
Don’t get me wrong, they shouldn’t really be swerving all over the road, but dodging em when you can is nice.
It’s fun to do on a motorcycle.
Why do I feel good when I avoid stepping on the pavement cracks?
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