Pavement joints may cause strong vibrations in moving vehicles discomforting or annoying drivers and passengers at times. Conventionally, two important indices, International Roughness Index (IRl) and Present Serviceability Index (PSI) have been chosen to characterize pavement ride quality. Increase of IRl and reduction of PSI in the presence of pavement joints are analytically derived by employing a vehicle model across joints of different geometries. The dependence of ride quality reduction on joint width, vertical fault, and tire-road contact length are explicitly derived. Theoretical predictions agree well with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) reported data. These research results are important for maintaining pavement systems and possibly for establishing pavement quality control criterion.