This scary video captures how little time a driver can have in avoiding a wreck when a tire flies over a median at the approaching car. We often deal with accidents in torts but it is hard for a jury to sometimes understand the very limited time for reaction. Indeed, one of the tricks of litigators is to give a sense of greater time by breaking up the period in a series of decisions or actions.
The van driver is able to move quickly to avoid the tire but that leaves even less time for the victim.
The driver posted the video and described the scene: “I was driving Westbound on the 401 approaching Salem Road on Tuesday Jan 13th 2015 when a tire flew over the median and smashed into my car.”
What is fascinating is that the driver hit by the tire is being attacked in comments for remaining in the left passing lane.
Do you want it back?
Ba dum bum.
Pogo, You have my kind of sense of humor.
Ari, Cheeseheads ARE THE WORST left lane drivers in the country. It drives me nuts! Highways w/ just modest traffic have what I call the Wi. Conga Line. Some constipated old Cheeshead going 60 in the left lane. The biggest offenders seem to be young women on the phone.
An unlikely highway conversation:
Driver: Is that a tire, or the rim and the tire, about to kill us?
Passenger: I believe it’s the entire functional unit heading straight for our windshield..
Driver: So hard to tell. Thanks.
RH
Actually, it is a wheel (sometimes called a rim)with a tire on it. What was flying down the highway was the whole assembly. Pedantic I know 😀
Most people in the US don’t seem to make that distinction because they are not interested in the mechanics of the auto/truck and let someone else do the maintenance on their vehicles.
You are quite correct about the rotary velocity. A tire would wobble and flop around and not obtain that straight trajectory that a wheel and tire combination does.
“Does American English not make distinction between the two?”
Not when it’s hurtling toward you.
slohrss29 … the only place I recall there being a law making the “left lane” a passing only lane was on the Pennsylvania Turnpike many many years ago. Probably no longer in force. But back then, yes you could be ticketed for just traveling in the left lane passing no one. Someone more familiar with Pennsylvania can correct me, or update me, on this if necessary.
I’m amazed about all the commentaries mentioning a tyre while it was clearly a whole wheel coming through. No loose tyre could attain that rotary velocity anyhow. Does American English not make distinction between the two?
Rubber, the movie about a murderous tire.
No, seriously:
DBQ, Scary story, woman. VW Bug! I hit a dear on Interstate 80 in PA. driving my VW Bug. The Bug won..BARELY!
I’m so tired…
That is a phobia of my wife. If I’m driving w/ her in the car and there’s one of those ubiquitous trucks loaded w/ junk, or there’s a semi trailer that’s loaded w/ potential projectiles, I have to pass the vehicle ASAP. I won’t show her this video!
I had this happen to me years ago on the 101 commuting south from SF. I was in the fast lane (not a passing lane durrrrr) and the wheel came bouncing at me and thankfully bounced right in front of my car and then completely over the top. Timing is everything!!!! I was extremely fortunate since I was driving my 1967 VW bug at the time which would have been crushed…..like a bug.
The left lane is for those people who are going fast. It is not a passing lane. You can see that the driver and the van ahead are going faster than the people in the middle lane and were going to shortly overtake them. IF there is some a-hole behind you trying to shove you down the freeway at 30 mph over the speed limit, you move over briefly into the middle lane. Otherwise said a-hole will weave in and out of traffic causing all kinds of chaos. A courteous driver will move over to the middle or slower lanes if people are stacking up behind.
Weaving in and out of traffic is much more dangerous than everyone just moving on at their pace. 80 mph in the fast lane on the open freeway. 70 to 65 in the city freeways. If you are slower than that (grandpa) get in the slow lane with the trucks.
Probable unavoidable collision.
In watching the video my observation is that the driver reacted quickly and hit the brakes, as evidenced by a skid noise and visible deceleration as measured against other vehicles and objects. He makes a very slight right then another changeup to the left. He had a jersey barrier to his left and unknown if another vehicle to his right behind camera.
The tire came directly down the center of the car. The driver has less than one second from the time the tire became fully visible until the collision. The vehicle ahead of him did brake and quickly move right, which probably gave the driver a warning.
Despite this it is not reasonable to expect the driver could have avoided the collision. In fact, had he veered to the right he risked the tire hitting directly in-front of him and could have led to even more injury or worse.
I had a similar experience. I was in the left lane, having entered the freeway on the left, and was waiting for a car on my right to clear so that I could move to the right since I was planning to exit right in a couple of miles. I fully inflated tire jumped over the barrier coming toward me, complete with wheel, brake drum and all. I slammed on my braked and it hit me right between the headlights and flew straight up in the air. I was still going forward a bit, and invisioned it landing on the hood and coming through the windshield, so I jumped on the gas hoping to drive out from under it. It landed in the center of my roof, pushing the roof down about a foot. It then hit my right rear fender and left the freeway, crossing three lanes of traffic without hitting another car.
The guy who had lost the wheel was on the other side of the freeway, trying to mount the spare onto the missing wheel. No success, of course, since there was nothing there but the stump of the broken axle. He was drunk and, of course, had no insurance.
My car was not actually mine, but belonged to the company I worked for. My boss said he believed my story because, “Nobody could make that up.”
“Left passing lane?” Here in CA, the left most lane is the “fast lane” a euphemism designed to mock those stuck in gridlock. The rightmost lane is the slow lane, and for large trucks.
Well, the music speaks for itself. I decided I wouldn’t go there, but I thought the YouTube post saying the tire couldn’t take it any more and threw himself at the vehicle had a sort of “Murphy’s Law of the Vicious Nature of Inanimate Objects” feel to it.
Agree â thanks.
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Oh… what happens now?? Is there a traffic case for this sort of thing? Do they find the driver who lost the tire and is he responsible? Would there be an attempt to show negligence on his part–old tire or improper pressure or something?
One other note, I may have “faded to the right” some, as oddly, this tire has the same feeling of a heavy topspin shot in tennis–appears to arch a little slowly, then leaps at you once it hits the ground. Same thing from a heavily topped hit in baseball. Yeah, I know.. who else would think of something like that…
Crash appears unavoidable, but the driver’s taste in music was questionable.
I find that scary, and keep that in the back of my mind all the time. I’m a road and mountain cyclist, and part of the sport is reacting quickly to situations, and I don’t believe I could have reacted fast enough to avoid hitting the tire. I believe Mythbusters did a segment on the danger of tire fragments. This is even worse. That guy’s lucky to still be kicking. I did see the comments, and, besides being morose, I do not believe there is an actual law over which lane you have to drive in.