I was heading back down south from the NH Whites early today and had a bit of a scare...was in the left lane on I93 when traffic slowed down suddenly and I saw a tire rolling roughly in the middle of the highway ahead of us. I was sorta trapped next to a semi in the right lane, didn't really like that feeling with an uncertain situation ahead of us but the little group of vehicles I was in was able to scrub speed without swerving around or anything else unseemly happening.
I thought it was a tire/wheel combo at first, but it turned out to be the shell of a tire rolling around and then noticed what I think was a high end MB sedan pulling onto the right shoulder...this vehicle had super low profile tires and its left front wheel appeared to be empty. The rolling tire ended up bumping into the MB it had come from just before I went by.
This struck me as sort of a strange occurrence, a tire that had been shed without the wheel basically staying largely intact and rolling around like that. It hit me right away that it may have had something to do with its ultra low profile nature, maybe when there was a sudden loss of pressure the wheel edges just quickly sliced the sidewalls off and the treaded part of the tire just stayed in one piece and went on its merry way to bump into its owner a little ways down the road?
Glad that the MB got over to the side safely and that none of us behind it got into any tussles that could have led to damage and injuries. I would imagine that wheel the tire came from was not in great shape at the end...
I thought it was a tire/wheel combo at first, but it turned out to be the shell of a tire rolling around and then noticed what I think was a high end MB sedan pulling onto the right shoulder...this vehicle had super low profile tires and its left front wheel appeared to be empty. The rolling tire ended up bumping into the MB it had come from just before I went by.
This struck me as sort of a strange occurrence, a tire that had been shed without the wheel basically staying largely intact and rolling around like that. It hit me right away that it may have had something to do with its ultra low profile nature, maybe when there was a sudden loss of pressure the wheel edges just quickly sliced the sidewalls off and the treaded part of the tire just stayed in one piece and went on its merry way to bump into its owner a little ways down the road?
Glad that the MB got over to the side safely and that none of us behind it got into any tussles that could have led to damage and injuries. I would imagine that wheel the tire came from was not in great shape at the end...