The Wendlands recently experienced damage to their motorhome as a result of a chunk of tire thrown up by a semi, prompting them to be more aware of highway debris and to advocate for change.
By Mike Wendland, F426141
May 2017
It happened to us on Interstate 75, just north of Chattanooga on our way back home from Florida a few weeks ago. It was a cloudless day, with no wind and little traffic. A perfect day to drive.
Ahead of me was a big tractor-trailer, doing about 60 miles per hour in the right-hand lane. I flipped on my turn signal, checked the rearview mirror, and pulled my motorhome into the passing lane. As I began to overtake the big rig, I suddenly noticed something in the road, a few feet ahead of his left front wheels.
A gator.
No, not an alligator. A strip of a truck tire, so named because when lying on the road, it sort of resembles the back of an alligator.
I veered into the left shoulder a bit but had little room to maneuver. Neither did the truck, which hit the strip of tire and immediately flung it up and right into the passenger side of our motorhome. There was a loud “clunk” as it hit, and my first thought was Jennifer. She was in the front passenger seat. If I hadn’t slightly turned the motorhome to the left, the chunk of tire might have gone right through the windshield.
As it was, when it flew up, it took out the side mirror. As I made my way back into the right-hand lane, I could see the mirror dangling by its control wires. A couple of minutes later, I exited the highway and found a place to pull over. Thanks to some duct tape, I put the mirror together enough to at least be safe and somewhat useable for the rest of the way home.
It was a close call, and as my nerves settled down, I became angry. Just a foot or so to the left and my wife could have been injured. Thousands of people do suffer this fate every year as a result of the very same hazard: tire scraps and other road debris.
All the rest of the way home, I was on the lookout. Tire debris littered every highway and interstate we drove, just as it does across North America. Traffic safety experts say road debris causes over 25,000 accidents and at least 100 deaths each year in the United States and Canada. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reports that blown tire pieces are the number-one form of road debris encountered.
The origin of gators is in dispute. Public attention often has centered on capped or retreaded tires. Retreading is a process that saves money by shaving down old tires to their casing and attaching and bonding a new exterior. When the retread tires become hot or are used too long, they may shed large hunks of rubber, until the whole tire eventually blows. But it’s easy to see why retreads are in use. They cost one-third to one-half of what a new truck tire costs, and they save on resources needed to produce a completely new tire.
Although retreads are often seen as the culprit of road debris, a 2008 study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concluded that retreaded tires aren’t necessarily more likely to blow out than new tires. The study found that road hazards were the most common cause of failure for both types of tires, close to 40 percent for each. Another third of the failures were caused by maintenance and operational issues. Manufacturing defects accounted for 16 percent of failures.
It’s not unusual for a truck to be driven over 200,000 miles a year. That far exceeds the miles logged on the average private vehicle. And with 18 wheels, that means trucks have many more chances to experience tire failure versus a normal passenger car.
If more truck drivers would take the time to check tire conditions and pressures and replace their tires when they show wear, fewer gators would litter our roads. Some experts also have pointed out concerns regarding states that allow trucks to travel faster than the 75-mile-per-hour maximum truck tires are designed to handle.
The trucking industry is understandably sensitive to being blamed for gator-caused accidents. And that’s not my intent with this column. In fact, we motorhome owners need to be equally cognizant of caring for our tires — keeping them properly inflated, not overloading them, and monitoring them for signs of wear and aging. Unlike truck tires, motorhome tires are more likely to “age out” than to wear out. And motorhomes do experience blowouts, as do passenger cars, and leave behind tire debris.
But the overwhelming majority of tire gators come from trucks. My concern is that with so much tire debris on our roads, somebody needs to be working hard to curtail and clean up the problem. If that’s happening, it isn’t evident to us during our travels.
I have a great deal of respect for professional truck drivers. I know the majority of them take good care of their rigs and monitor their tires, but that’s not the case for all of them. And accidents do happen. Tires do have blowouts. They blow out a lot. Just look at the debris as you travel.
I think we need to make reducing those blowouts a top highway safety priority. The problem is serious, and it is costing lives.
Meantime, be careful out there and stay alert.