Some of the roads in McHenry County are, shall we say, less than in the prime of their lives. They have potholes. They have cracks. With stop-gap repairs, they may have bumps built on bumps of asphalt.

While it’s uncomfortable driving on a bad stretch of road, such as that, there’s more to it than just comfort; it’s also a matter of cost and safety.

If you drove your car on a perfectly smooth road 100 percent of the time your car’s suspension and steering systems would last almost indefinitely. It’s the bumps, potholes and cracks in the road that wear down a car’s steering and suspension.

In a worst-case scenario, you could hit a single pothole that would throw your car’s steering out of alignment or damage parts of the steering and/or suspension. A really bad road can damage a wheel or a tire.

Thankfully, that doesn’t happen often. Rather, it’s a question of wear that occurs to your car’s steering and suspension little by little over time. Instead of a single pothole costing you several hundred dollars in repairs, each pothole, crack and bump adds a little expense to the maintenance and repair of your vehicle.

If you think about it that way, for instance, that pothole you just hit might have cost you 50 cents. A drive down a particularly bad stretch of road might bring you $1.35 closer to the total cost of fixing your car’s frontend steering and suspension.

What can you do about it? Here are some suggestions that might help you to extend the life of your car’s steering and suspension parts, as well as your front-end alignment:

• Try to avoid roads that are in particularly bad condition
• Keep a lookout for bad potholes and bumps when driving – while trying to avoid them, however, make sure you don’t create a potential accident, which can be far costlier than fixing your car’s steering or suspension
• Slow down on roads that have a lot of potholes, cracks or bumps while continuing to be aware of other drivers
• Have your car’s steering, suspension and alignment checked periodically to make sure your car is still safe

When a car’s steering, suspension or alignment are out of whack, they can cause hazardous conditions. For instance, if the ball joints are bad enough, a bad bump can cause them to separate. At that point, you will have a hard time steering the car.