Tire Blowout Accidents

Anyone who has driven on the country’s major highways and interstates has seen shreds and scraps of tires from 18 wheelers and semi-trucks. Sometimes you have to swerve to avoid hitting them if they are in the middle of the road, because often times the scraps and shreds are not on the side of the road.

Tire blowouts, unfortunately, are very common on highways. They are rarely just accidents, however, despite how the insurance company for the trucking company may argue them to be. Instead, they are often deliberate choices made by the trucking company in neglecting to properly maintain their vehicles.

TRUCK TIRE BLOWOUT LAWS

A tire will blowout on a car, truck, or SUV when a tire’s tread detaches because of a couple of factors, which are mostly attributable to friction, wear and tear, and heat. While too much tire pressure can lead to accidents because it affects how a car performs, not enough tire pressure in a tire can also affect a tire as well and lead to a blowout. Other reasons for tire blowouts are when semi-trucks and 18-wheelers accidentally run over something that is left on the highway or when the truck is simply hauling too much weight.

It is very important to prove liability in a case and to do this you have to prove that the tire blowout was the result of a trucking company’s negligence. You might wonder how this can be accomplished. Here are a few of the more obvious and common ways:

Prove that the company did not regularly check the tires on the truck Prove that the company did not know the proper tire pressure Prove that the company did not properly inspect truck as a whole Prove that the company did not train the driver of the truck

Tire blowouts often occur in warmer months when the roads are hot, such as the summer between May and September. When a tire blows out, it can be terrifying for those on the road and for the driver of the semi-truck. Sometimes the driver cannot control his or her truck, and the truck veers out of control and can even flip over on its side.

Some additional reasons for a tire blowout occur because of very large and severe potholes. If the tire hits the pothole very hard, the pothole will rip through the rubber like a knife puncturing a balloon, blowing the tire out at once.

This can be a sudden thing that does not give the truck driver much warning. Most trucks on the road that carry approximately 12,000 pounds of freight are supposed to have a tire pressure that is set at 110 PSI. Many truckers and trucking companies are not diligent in checking to make sure that their tires are in fact inflated to this level. While it may seem paradoxical, it can often be just as hazardous to have a tire over-inflated because over-inflated tires are just as likely to lead to tire blowouts.