Originally posted by: Bootprint
He's lucky it wasn't a truck tire. A few years back in Ontario we had a couple of people kill by truck tires coming off in the other direction.
News article from 2006. "Since then, flying tire incidents have decreased by 58 per cent ? from 215 in 1997 to 90 in 2005."
In the early 80's I was an equipment operator for a gypo outfit near Odgen Utah. I filled in slow times by driving dump truck. One day, I'm driving down the road and in my mirror, I see a tire chasing me...mine. Fortunately, there was no oncoming traffic for a ways, so I slowed down a bit, let the tire catch up to me, then edged over to nudge it into a farmer's field. Turns out, the gypo I was working for was tight on $$$, so he had radials and bias ply tires mixed on the same axle on some of his trucks to save money. I had to trudge a couple hundred feet into this plowed (but not planted) field to retrieve the dammed tire and wheel, then grunt it into the back of the dump truck. Fucking 10.00/20's are HEAVY!
The mix of tires stressed the centers of the wheels, and the outer wheel broke and left the plate where the mounting studs are...Fortunately for me, no one was hurt. This was a fairly busy road during rush hour...as the UHP was so kind to point out to me as he wrote my boss a severe ticket for mixing the tires and failing to properly maintain the equipment...
