Heading South on the M1 last week, I was moving at a fair speed in the second lane overtaking an Artic.
Suddenly a Golf blasted past doing about 90MPH, cut in front of me, then making as though to move into the right lane.
Nothing exceptional about that. But his right rear tyre was a miss shaped blur, with smoke pouring off it. I flashed him a few times as he accelerated away and he almost lost it as he moved into the right lane, then swerved across my front, between two artics and onto the hard shoulder.
It made me wonder how long he had been losing pressure in that tyre, not noticing the different feel, or for that matter the smoke.
Are some people now driving without awareness of tyres, punctures, pressure loss etc?
A few years ago, I also saw someone in the city driving slowly on the wheel rim, (flat tyre flapping) looking unaware and unconcerned.
Edited by oilrag on 11/04/2008 at 11:51
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sounds to me like he was up to no good you flashing him probably made him think you were an unmarked police car hence the speeding off and dangerous driving
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Always been like that. Generally women, sorry, driving around with a tyre flapping.
I hit a defective expansion joint, with a loud bang, on the old Thelwell viaduct in my MkII Golf many years ago. Traffic was too heavy for me to stop safely and nothing seemed to be awry. I kept going and stopped at the next service area still a bit shaky.
When I came back from the comfort break, the NS rear tyre had collapsed into the wheel well and was very hot. So I guess it had been knocked off the rim by the impact. The partial vacuum was maintained until I'd a new tyre fitted. I was lucky.
Edited by Glaikit Wee Scunner {P} on 11/04/2008 at 12:04
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I recall driving a hired Astra around 1996 on the M8 in the rush hour, the left rear tyre punctured and I really didn't notice until I saw the black smoke in my nearside mirror. What made it interesting was I was in lane 2 and had to force my way to lane 1 and then the hard shoulder as no-one would let me across despite the black smoke! By the time I stopped all that was left was the wheel rim and little bits of charred rubber, it still seemed to handle ok though!
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Rear tyre failures on FWD cars are sometimes difficult to notice (apart from at high speeds) because the weight on the rear tyres is relatively light. I had a rear tyre split on a 306 and the only symptom was a very slight pull to one side. Fortunately I noticed it before the tyre was completely flat.
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I was a passenger in a mates TD5 coming up M5 at a steady 75 - a Mini pulled alongside and beeped horn and pointed to rear offside tyre - as soon as mate backed off Bang ! and TD5 started to snake a bit - we never felt or heard anything up to that point
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One time I thought I had a puncture (thump thump thump noise)
- pulled over Tyres were fine and noise went on next stretch of road - it was just the bad state of some of our roads. So doesn't surprise me some punctures are ignored especially on bad stretches of road...
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A few years ago, I was following a car on the motorway at about 70mph, and it's rear tyre deflated over about 15 seconds. We all noticed it in my car and gave it a few horn blasts and light flashes. The people in it didn't know what was the matter. It was only a few seconds later that smoke was coming off, and say 15 seconds after that small black bits of rubber were flying towards us and the tyre was wobbling about like a bin liner, at which point they indicated and pulled over!
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People don't notice anything now, unless it pops up in a message on their computer screens and they have to OK it to make it go away.
I once saw a car with a large inflatable dinghy thing on the roof rack. The fastenings had partly come loose and the boat was bouncing up in the air, like a kite about to take off. The driver ignored everyone's flashes and hoots, and blithely carried on. When I pulled alongside my passenger tried to attract his attention by winding the window down and waving. He resolutely avoided eye contact.
It can't have been that he didn't know - he didn't want to know.
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I had a slow puncture (nail) on the rear of the 406 about a year ago, noticed it almost straight away on the motorway, although I was carrying about 1/4 of a ton of a tree in the boot I had just cut down at a relatives. The extra weight in the back may have raised my awareness to it. Ironically due to the wood in the back the spare was inaccesable so it was a cautious 100 miles stopping every 25 or so to check condition and reinflate with electric pump that was just accesable through the branches :)
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On Monday I came across a driver with a really badly deflated tyre. Driver pulled out of the stop start traffic and pulled into the side road I was on and she got out. Looking at the other side of the car all puzzled... a few minutes later I ask everything okay and she replies I think I've got a flat.
So I park up and get out and ask if she needs a hand or is she okay. I then look at the wheel/tyre. Totally deflated, damaged rim and steam coming out! So it had been like that for a while I think. And she "thought" she had a flat. She also thought she'd have to call the insurance until I offered to help change it.
The worrying thing, she was an intelligent person (well should have been seeing as she was a pharmacist) and being Spanish had driven back from Spain the previous week.
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I can't exactly remember the last time I suffered a puncture, although it was sometime in the early 1990s and both nearside tyres were flat when I returned to the vehicle.
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Last time I had a puncture (and only time) was a flat tyre the day after I'd driven back from Brittany to Manchester.... it was a nail and did not deflate at all during the journey but was flat the next morning. Maybe I'd picked up the nail at the end of the journey but we were lucky.
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I see, or more often hear, people driving past with flat tyres about once a week.
When she was still learning to drive but had passed her test, my wife got a front puncture in the Lada, which had quite big fat tyres to go with its very heavy steering. Although she was aware of something wrong with the steering, she didn't know what it was or think of getting out to take a look, so continued driving until the tyre was completely destroyed.
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My brother-in-law has never had a puncture repaired, he's bought several new tyres to replace punctured ones, and once a new wheel and tyre!
My daughter (Bsc maths) was stopped in her MX5 by plod and asked: "Do you know you've got a flat rear tyre".
She replied honestly "no".
Dad had to sort it. The tyre fitter removed fistfuls of 'crumb' from inside - who knows how long she'd been running around on it flat.
I know it was quite low profile, and it's got fairly firm suspension, but I reckon a lot of the 'ignorance' was due to the volume level of her stereo, and the 'perhaps it'll go away' syndrome.
Edited by Webmaster on 11/04/2008 at 23:03
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who knows how long she'd been running around on it flat.
Certainly shows how resilient modern tyres are.
Edited by Webmaster on 11/04/2008 at 23:03
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My bairn has driven on 2 punctured tyres as far as I know and not noticed. I don't blame her, it's just fortunate that she has always driven little Fiats with cheap tyres. Please help us if she buys something expensive!
Edited by Webmaster on 11/04/2008 at 23:05
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Considering that so many drivers think tyre pressures only need checking when they get their car serviced, I'm surprised they don't fail more often.
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But the dealers always get the tyre pressures wrong!
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Read the question in today's telegraph about a driver having "overfilled" their tyres....I wonder
whether people should be allowed out at all at times.
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I know, I thought that was a late "April Fool" !
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I suspect that PAS being fitted to most cars nowadays is a contributory factor.
As a previous poster has rightly said, unless a light flashes on the dashboard they don't notice today; even then most of them don't know what the light's flashing for, and blithely carry on.
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I know I thought that was a late "April Fool" !
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I thought HJ was very restrained with his reply!
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Last month as I was walking down the road, I head what I thought was a wheel barrow coming down the road. Was infact an old boy driving home having hit the curb whilst parking, and ripping the side of the tyre to shreds. Just in case he hadn't noticed, I managed to approach him (he had just arrived home) and told him he had a 'pucture'. He did know, but was getting home to call the AA to change it. I said not to worry, and 5min of my time meant he had the spare fitted (he didn't know he had a spare or a jack in his car) and for my trouble he gave me £10!
I do find it quite shocking the number of people though that do not know how to change a tyre! Isn't that part of the test nowadays?!?!
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I do find it quite shocking the number of people though that do not know how to change a tyre! Isn't that part of the test nowadays?!?!
I suspect there are several reasons for this.
Firstly, the vast majority of motorists now have breakdown cover, why struggle and get your hands dirty when you're paying someone else to do it for you?
Secondly, courtesty and assistance such as you offered (which does you great credit IMHO) is all too rare these days; sadly I find that people are loathe to approach strangers to offer assistance lest it be taken the wrong way, how tragic a reflection of our society.
Finally, I doubt that such a basic thing is taught to novice drivers. I really do think it should be because of the safety implications if a driver tries to use a jack incorrectly. Then again the victim would probably sue the driving school if it went wrong!
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I agree with you Harleyman, a great pity that especially middle aged chaps, are viewed as something to be feared. Why is this?
Last year there was a very elderly and frail chap wandering around near his little car just off the A14, with an obviously flat rear tyre, well i went round the block so to speak and returned to help him, within 10 minutes there were 4 of us doing the same.
As it was he didn't have a wheelbrace, searched his entire car, so i scoured the cars on the truck, all different, he had a city rover with very small wheelnut size.
Anyway a young lady pulled up in her car, and her wheel brace was no use either, but she got on the phone to her mechanic husband, who came out with sockets to sort the chap out.
So thank goodness there's more of us left than sometimes we ourselves realise.
Apart from the young lady, have a guess which type of people us 4 useless helpers were, see first sentence.
As regards being unaware of punctures, i don't think most people look or feel or listen to or at their cars anymore.
If i get into almost anyone else's car the very second the ignition comes on, the radio fires up at deafening volume, they wouldn't be able to hear any of those little noises or vibrations that pre warn of many impending troubles.
Could that be because we grew up with vehicles that would constantly require maintenance of some sort whereas the modern vehicle doesn't and probably isn't able to be maintained quite so easily by ourselves.
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If i get into almost anyone else's car the very second the ignition comes on the radio fires up at deafening volume they wouldn't be able to hear any of those little noises or vibrations that pre warn of many impending troubles.
Your hearing followed by your sense of smell may one day save your life.
Ipods/earpieces playing music etc. whilst driving should carry a lifetime driving ban. No exceptions.
MD
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My (non smoker) sense of smell already has MD, years ago whilst driving a rental truck, on which some buffoon had routed a live unfused wire outside a grommett and of course it chafed through on the bare metal, well it melted virtually the entire cab wiring loom, with noxious fumes filling the cab almost instantly.
Luckily i was only going slowly and was able to stop quickly and bale out, heave up and stagger round for several minutes.
Can't believe i actually snatched the glowing wires off the battery and saved it going up in flames, sometimes wish i hadn't.
Since then when i smell strong fumes from almost anything, i still choke.
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But the dealers always get the tyre pressures wrong!
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This is true. I tend to check pressures immediately AFTER a service and correct them.
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I blame low profile tyres, they don't feel the same when you get a puncture, less roll on corners and less noise.
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It's funny you say there aren't more people that help others out. Just before I heard the 'wheelbarrow' coming down the road, I had just passed a group of lads, who started laughing and shouting abuse at what I realised was the car.
Had they actually stopped and helped the guy, (if they knew how!) maybe they would be £10 better off! Glad they didn't though! It was my little girls birthday next day, and that money bought her an extra present! lol
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