How to Maintain Your Car for Optimal Safety

Prevent car accidents with these helpful maintenance tips

Good driving habits play a large role in preventing accidents, but the shape your car is in is just as important. Mechanical failures can make your car difficult or impossible to operate and stop. Knowing how to maintain your car is key to avoiding problems on the road.

Have Brakes and Tires Inspected Regularly

Old brakes may not have the best stopping power, especially if the pads are on their last legs. Tires that are in bad shape can blow out and both make the car harder to stop, and possibly cause you to lose control of the car.

Poor tire alignment can cause excessive wear, leading to potential tire blowouts. Unbalanced tires lead to a shaky steering wheel at freeway speeds, and if you’re concentrating on controlling the steering wheel, you might not have the best reaction time to avoid accidents.

Belts, Fluids, and General Maintenance

It helps to have your mechanic look over your car whenever you bring it in for an oil change, and to get the recommended maintenance done according to your car’s owner manual. If you do maintenance yourself, you may still want to bring the car into a shop once a year or so for a general inspection.

If you car runs low on a vital fluid like oil, or if something like a belt fails, your car could become impossible to drive. That’s not good if you’re on the freeway with traffic heading toward you. Have all fluids checked, from oil and windshield washing fluid to coolant.

Lights — All of Them

No headlights, or driving with only one headlight working, lowers your visibility, and you could end up hitting something because you didn’t see it in time to brake. Malfunctioning reverse lights mean you can’t signal to others that you intend to back up — and that can lead to more than a few collisions.

If you’ve been in an accident and think the other party’s car maintenance might have been an issue, contact Eisenberg Law Offices at 608-256-8356. A lawyer can look into potential negligence issues or defects in repairs and parts and help you put together a case.