The geometry of impulsive pp-waves is explored via the analysis of the geodesic and geodesic deviation equation using the distributional form of the metric. The geodesic equation involves formally ill-defined products of distributions due to the nonlinearity of the equations and the presence of the Dirac δ-distribution in the space–time metric. Thus, strictly speaking, it cannot be treated within Schwartz’s linear theory of distributions. To cope with this difficulty we proceed by first regularizing the δ-singularity, then solving the regularized equation within classical smooth functions and, finally, obtaining a distributional limit as solution to the original problem. Furthermore, it is shown that this limit is independent of the regularization without requiring any additional condition, thereby confirming earlier results in a mathematically rigorous fashion. We also treat the Jacobi equation which, despite being linear in the deviation vector field, involves even more delicate singular expressions, like the “square” of the Dirac δ-distribution. Again the same regularization procedure provides us with a perfectly well behaved smooth regularization and a regularization-independent distributional limit. Hence it is concluded that the geometry of impulsive pp-waves can be described consistently using distributions as long as careful regularization procedures are used to handle the ill-defined products.