Boca Raton, FLIt may seem minor, but an exploding tire from a tractor trailer can cause a lot of damage. Not all trucking accidents are two or three vehicle collisions. In some cases, something explodes from, or falls off, the tractor trailer, causing damage to the other vehicles on the road. Because the semi truck is so big, the driver may not even realize anything has happened.
"I do a lot of traveling between here and South Carolina because I have a 98 year old grandmother and cousins in South Carolina," Dave M. says. "In the past few years, I've noticed there are more and more dead tire carcasses on the road. You see them, you swerve to avoid them and usually you're fine. I've been driving over a quarter of a century with no accidents.
"This time [April, 2008] I had to go up to South Carolina and I took my BMW. Normally I wouldn't but my grandmother had broken her leg and I had to go in a hurry so I took my car thinking nothing would happen.
"Of course, you can't predict these things. Everyone on the road was driving about 75 to 80 mph when the truck in the left lane's tire exploded, and suddenly there were pieces of tire shrapnel everywhere. Everyone swerved, but there were pieces of tire hitting all the vehicles. The biggest chunk landed on my car.
"I think my car had the major part of the damage. Most of the other cars were hit by little pieces of tire, so they kept going. I had to stop. Everything in my car was grinding. Half of the undercarriage was dragging on the ground. I couldn't drive my car the way it was. There was damage to both fenders, the hood, the headlights, the grill—pretty much the whole front of my car was damaged.
"The 18-wheeler kept going, so I couldn't get his license number. My insurance covered the damage, but I paid the $1,000 deductible. Then, my insurance company raised my rates because I made a claim. That got me pretty upset. I went to other insurance companies, but they were all going to charge high rates because I had a claim. I told them it wasn't my fault, but that didn't matter. As soon as they find out you have a claim, your rates are higher.
"I'm mad as hell about this. I have to pay $300 to $400 per tire for my car and these truckers are paying a lot less and using retreads. It should be illegal for them to use retreads and if it is illegal, then they should be monitored.
"It really aggravates me. These truckers don't care—they lose a tire and they keep going, but there are tire scraps all over the road. If you go north of St. Lucie County, it's amazing. There are tire scraps all over the road. This is a major problem and I worry about what happens at night if drivers can't see these tires on the road."