What To Do If You Hit The Kerb With Your Car

I’ve Just Hit A Kerb, What Damage Should I Check For?

This minor mistake could actually do some nasty damage to your car. The most common problem caused by colliding with a kerb is wheel misalignment, otherwise known as bad tracking. Hitting a kerb can knock your wheels out of their perfectly aligned straightforward position, which will result in the vehicle pulling to one side when the steering wheel is straight.

A harder hit could also break one of the car’s axles or even burst a tyre, either of which will immediately stop you in your tracks and could also throw you into a potentially deadly accident. However, if you give any kerb a hard whack without breaking an axle or bursting a tyre, you’re at least going to start causing uneven wear on the rubber and you could even end up damaging the car’s transmission by forcing a wheel shaft into it. 

Then there’s also the possibility of damaging the underside of your car, if you were to drive over a particularly high kerb. If you scrape the bottom of your car, you could do catastrophic damage to all manner of parts like your exhaust system or catalytic converter.

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How Fast Do You Need To Hit A Kerb To Cause Damage?

The truth is, there’s no way to answer this accurately because there are a number of factors that also influence how much damage is suffered, if any. You could suffer some minor damage at under 10 mph, but it also depends on the model of car that you’re driving, the angle of the impact and even down to things like the weight you’re carrying. More serious damage could be caused by hitting the kerb at anything more than 10 mph, if the other factors conspire against you too.

Could There Be Damage That’s Not Visible?

An inspection of your car after hitting the kerb could tell you everything you need to know, but not always. It’s possible that some damage could be done that can’t be seen by simply looking the car over. Tyre damage, for example, might not be obvious particularly if your car has stopped while resting on top of a gash.

Minor wheel alignment issues also won’t be visible to the naked eye, so you should take care when you get back in the car for the first time in case you find it unexpectedly pulling to one side.

Leaks also might not be spotted, depending on how long you examine the underside of the vehicle for. If you’ve scraped the bottom of the car, you might have caused a leak that’s slowly dripping; a quick glance might not let you notice this.

What To Do If I’ve Sustained Damage

If you’ve hit the kerb and damaged your car, your own judgement should really be the difference between whether you continue on with your journey or call a recovery vehicle to tow you there. After all, each incident is going to different levels of damage to individual cars. If your car is pulling, you will probably be okay to make your way home or to the nearest garage, but if the car is driving different in any other, or if there’s clear damage, you shouldn’t risk it – especially on faster roads like motorways.

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