Many people have had the following experience: you’re driving along, and if you’re not paying close attention, your vehicle might run over a pothole in the middle of the street. Maybe it’s enough to cause you to bounce up and down, and it does no further harm. A huge pothole can damage your car quite a bit, though, and it could injure you too.

You also might hit a pothole while you’re out on your bike. It can happen if you don’t have your eyes on the roadway, but you might also have little choice but to run over one if traffic surrounds you and it’s not safe to swerve out of the way.

You might have pothole accident questions. We’ll cover a few related topics right now.

You Must Be Careful When Trying to Aid Pothole Crash Victims

Let’s say you successfully avoided a big pothole, but another car didn’t. They struck the pothole and blew a tire, and when the driver gets out, you can see they’ve injured themselves. As a Good Samaritan, you decide to pull over, get out of your car, and help them.

That’s noble, but if you ever do this, you must be careful. Remember that you’re probably still in the middle of an active roadway. Cars will keep coming along, and if the drivers aren’t paying attention as carefully as they should be, they could hit either you or the damaged car because they’re going too fast and can’t stop in time.

If something like this happens, you may need to contact a vehicle or pedestrian pothole accident lawyer who can speak to you about your rights and what to do next to recover damages.

You Can Follow a Certain Protocol if a Pothole Injures You

If you’re the one who didn’t see the pothole or couldn’t avoid it, then try to pull your car over to the roadside and out of traffic’s flow if you can. If you were riding a bike or walking when you hit the pothole or fell into it, do the same thing.

Once you’re out of the way, you can call 911, assuming you have a smartphone with you. If you don’t, you can ask someone nearby to call for help on your behalf.

As you wait for assistance to arrive, you might see if you can get witness information, like names and phone numbers. Those witnesses will likely come in handy if you need to bring a lawsuit against an individual or entity who should have known about the pothole and fixed it.

Who is the Most Likely Pothole Accident Victim?

You usually think about cars as hitting potholes, but cyclists can encounter them as well. It’s also not inconceivable that a pedestrian could hit one. Some people walk or jog in the street if there is no sidewalk, as is the case on some major thoroughfares.

Whether you’re driving, cycling, or walking, though, a pothole can harm you, the vehicle you’re operating, or both. A deep pothole can cause a twisted ankle or a broken wrist. It can total a vehicle if you lose control after you hit it and run into a lamppost, a parked car, or some other inanimate object nearby.

Who Can You Sue if This Happens to You?

Liability if you hurt yourself or damage your vehicle after hitting a pothole is not always the easiest thing to determine. If you’re going to an establishment, such as a store, and you turn into their private driveway and hit a pothole there, you can usually bring a lawsuit against that store. Most reasonable people would expect that the store would repair their driveway and keep it hazard-free.

If you’re on a public street when you hit a pothole, and you hurt yourself or damage your car, you must sue the city or township since it happened when you were on public property. You’ll need to find a lawyer and talk to them about this to figure out how best to proceed.

What Else Can You Do if You See a Pothole While Driving?

If you see a pothole while driving, and you avoid hitting it, it’s always a good idea to note where it is and to contact someone to fix it. If it’s on a private driveway, you can contact the home or business’s owner. If it’s on a public street, you can call that town or city’s public works department and warn them.