Semi tire gets away on highway - GIF

[Jon]

Semi tire gets away on highway. Wait for it.




Previously:

Tire knocks out man - GIF
Heavy tire controlled explosion test - videos
Changing tire while driving - GIF
Tire blowout demonstration - GIF
Tire lighter inflation fail - GIF
Tire stabbing fail - video
NASA Tire Assault Vehicle (TAV), made from a German World War II tank model

[IntheGroove]

Many years ago when I had a Unimog, the spare tire fell off and hit a car. No one was hurt but it messed up the car...

[Elizabeth Greene]

That was a super single that still had the hub in it. The most likely chain of events was that the wheel seal failed, the bearing seized, the bearing clonked around until there was nothing left and then the whole wheel and hub came off together.

When I worked on trucks I saw a few of these, but most drivers caught them before the hub came all the way off. The friction would make them get so hot that the tires would explode and they usually noticed that. Repairing these was awesome. There was a mobile machinist that would come out, cut off the end of the spindle, weld on a new threaded end, grind down and weld to build up the gnarly bit of the spindle, and then regrind the whole thing concentric. Watching him work is what got me interested in machining.

[Rattlerjake]

I'm interested to know what happened to the vehicle it hit and the occupants. It didn't look good!

[ranald]

that was very nasty. There is something embarassing and almost exhilerating when you recognise one of your wheels passing you on the hiway. Unlike Elizabeth's scenareos, mine was due to someone trying to steal the then expensive aloy wheel on my boat trailer. No one was hit in the oncoming direction it crossed, and i was able to follow its path through long grass and retrieve it. To this day I don't know how it got through a fence or jumped it (best bet).

[meyer77]

I had two incidents with rouge tires, the first was when I was about 20 and at an electronic store, a tire with axel attached came thru a huge plate glass window and imbedded the axel part into a display case I had been in front of only minutes before!
The second was coming back from Mexico I was in the left lane of a four lane divided highway when I saw something that looked like a large bird coming toward us, when it got closer I could see it was a tire headed right at my windshield I pulled over as far to the right as I could as traffic was heavy, it hit the side mirror and took it right off and struck the car behind me in the windshield.

[WmRMeyers]

Semi tire gets away on highway. Wait for it.

When my youngest was still a baby, but not yet toddling, we went to my Dad's place in Western Colorado so they could meet the newest grand-child. On the way home, going through the pass to Denver, there is a section of the highway that is a no-passing zone. I was in the left lane, up ahead of me a bit was a big white 4x4 truck pulling a horse trailer. Something told me not to be there, and I stomped on the gas pedal. Wife was chewing me out for passing when we heard this loud noise behind us. The entire driver's side front wheel, hub, etc., bounced through the space I'd just left. Because they didn't understand what had happened, all the traffic behind me (and it was bumper to bumper, 70MPH) slowed suddenly. It hit the side of the mountain, bounced back across the two lanes of traffic without hitting anyone, and over the side into the canyon. Nobody hurt. If I had not moved when I did, it would have hit just a little right of center on the windshield of my van, and gone through to take out me, and my little baby daughter in the seat behind me.* Wife quit chewing me out, and asked how I knew to step on it. I think my guardian angel was working OT that day.

Bill

*And all the traffic behind us would have piled up on our wreckage...