The power of an exploding tire...

[DaveLC2]

These pictures were taken a few years back with my Canon Powershot A20. Basically what happend is the tire had a failure while parked next to cars in a busy parking lot. It was reported to sound like a small bomb going off Check out the damage. The vehicle parked to it's left suffered some damage from body hardware bouncing off of it. Crazy stuff.





Dave

[Mr Yuck]

AWESOME!!

That would be confusing.

[JSPhoto]

I was talking to a guy one day and saw a tire on his van blow while parked. It didn't do any damage but scared the daylights out of both of us. I have seen cars flip due to blown tires.
When working at a tire shop one guy was killed when he over inflated at ire while mounting it....tires are dangerous!

JS

[schrackman]

I was at a tire shop once when one of the workers was airing up a tire and walked away. I guess he forgot about it and next thing you know Kaboom! Shattered the rear glass on the hatchback to which the tire was supposed to go back on. Ooops.

[freygr]

I was at a tire shop once when one of the workers was airing up a tire and walked away. I guess he forgot about it and next thing you know Kaboom! Shattered the rear glass on the hatchback to which the tire was supposed to go back on. Ooops.

Stupid things that people do. Thats why you don't see any split ring wheels any more. Because the workers where not making sure the ring was set before inflating the tire and getting them selfs killed or maimed with the split ring flying off.

[I_Fly]

The military still uses split rings and split rims. Both are dangerous if handled incorrectly. One of my jobs was to change these types of tires and you always inflated them in a cage, just in case.

In the case of a split rim, you always deflate the tire before removing the lug nuts as they work as a safety backup to the bolts holding the two halves together. One of my "close calls" came from finding 3 of 5 bolts broken after removing a forklift tire. The lug nuts kept the rim together and had we not deflated the tire first, the pressure could have sent the outer half of the rim shooting off at us. I was training a group of mechanics and it was a great learning experience for us.

It's important to respect the power of compressed air. Dave's photos demonstrate the destructive potential quite well!

[jorgemonkey]

I've had 2 or 3 bike inner tubes pop on me while inside my parents garage. My ears were ringing for a few minutes. I cant image what that car tire would sounds like!

[Frog]

Early 60s a newspaper published a photo of a woman coming upon her husband and son dead with their clothes blown off at a gas station. I still remember the look of horror on her face and let the paper know I would never buy their publication again.

[freygr]

Compressed Air by it self can kill. I remember when I was a Boiler makers helper, an idoit goosed his pal with an air hose killing him.

[photophorous]

That's crazy stuff. I've never seen one that just blew up while sitting still like that. My brother drives a cement mixer and had a blow out recently on the front right tire while going about 50mph. The hoods on those things are completely fiberglass and the exploding tire completely removed the right side fender and half the hood, while pieces broke the windshield. He ran off the road, but wasn't hurt. His boss was just happy he didn't flip the thing. What a mess that would be.

Paul

[ken1953]

Back in the late 70's, a friend of mine was driving home from college. As she started to go under the freeway, a ring off an 18-wheeler came through her windshield, barely missing her. It embedded about 3 feet into the roof and had totaled the engine hood before hitting the windshield and roof.
I changed a lot of tires in my younger days and thank goodness never had one pop on me. The only thing that I ever had a problem with was a car battery blew up in my face one day. I got lucky there and only got a few drops on me...the rest mysteriously just went around my head somehow...
Ken

[DaveLC2]

When I was about 16 or so I had a slow leak on my Mt Bike tire. I patched it up and I didn't have a manual airpump at the time. All I had was a small pump with a co2 cartridge in it. The air filled up far too rapidily for the patch to hold and it blew up right when I was filling it up. At the time I lived in an apartment complex and there was long walkway between two buildings. That thing was so loud people were coming out thinking it was a shotgun blast. I believe someone actually called the police as well My ears were ringing as swell for a while.

Dave