Crashes Reported in the Media

[aschendel]

This is interesting to me.

I wonder how big of a retread or what position it would need to be in in order to knock you down...  I worry about them being kicked up / thrown off (Mythbusters proved it could decapitate) but the BRC / ERC shows (or at least used to) that you can ride over pretty large items successfully.  If it was laying flat it'd be only an inch high, of course if it was on it's side in a "C" or whatever it'd be much taller but presumably would tip over as you hit it.  All of that assuming it was on a straight section of road and there weren't other factors in place (braking, turning, etc.).

a.s.

[RCKT GRL]

This is interesting to me.

I wonder how big of a retread or what position it would need to be in in order to knock you down...  I worry about them being kicked up / thrown off (Mythbusters proved it could decapitate) but the BRC / ERC shows (or at least used to) that you can ride over pretty large items successfully.  If it was laying flat it'd be only an inch high, of course if it was on it's side in a "C" or whatever it'd be much taller but presumably would tip over as you hit it.  All of that assuming it was on a straight section of road and there weren't other factors in place (braking, turning, etc.).

a.s.

This is only speculation on my part, but my guess would be that she tried to take evasive action (ie: hard braking, swerving) upon seeing the object in the road and that is likely what caused her to crash.  Had she had on protective gear (ie: helmet), the likely would have saved her life (until the SUV hit her)  Bad way to go out IMHO.  thoughts and prayers to family and friends of the victim. 

[pkpk]

I should clarify that I am most leery of them being kicked up in heavy traffic or the tire getting punctured by the metal that could have migrated out of the retread after being run over dozens of times.  I agree that a retread laying flat should be manageable (although at speed, it still might cause a headshake).  I wouldn't want to hit a curled one though.

[dl]

I try not to hang out too long behind, or beside tractor trailers, bike, or car. I dont ever want to experience them blowing a tire while Im right next to them.
Generally, when they have a very low tire, the tire gets excessively hot, and the recap can delaminate.

[GUZZI JOHN]

 Another after dark right?GJ

[Powershouse]

Mom distraught - daughter wouldn't wear a helmet.

http://www.startribune.com/local/north/157789085.html

[DaleB]

Mom distraught - daughter wouldn't wear a helmet.

http://www.startribune.com/local/north/157789085.html

From the referenced Strib article;

The Tire Retread and Repair Information Bureau said that its industry saves U.S. truckers about $3 billion annually in tire purchasing costs.

The bureau's managing director, David Stevens, said last fall that numerous government studies have determined that tire debris can be blamed no more on retreaded tires than on new ones.

This implies that new regular tires come apart just as often as retreads. Is this true? The only new tires I've ever heard of that delaminated were the Firestone(?) tires on the Ford Explorer about 10 years ago. I've always assumed that the tire treads I see on the road are from retreads.

Dale B

[pkpk]

This implies that new regular tires come apart just as often as retreads. Is this true? The only new tires I've ever heard of that delaminated were the Firestone(?) tires on the Ford Explorer about 10 years ago. I've always assumed that the tire treads I see on the road are from retreads.
Dale B

I've wondered the same thing.  I suspect these studies were strictly lab environment where tires were put through rigorous testing under optimal conditions (properly inflated tires.)  I have a hard time believing under-inflated retreads are no worse for falling apart than a factory tire under real world application.

[beedawg]

This is only speculation on my part, but my guess would be that she tried to take evasive action (ie: hard braking, swerving) upon seeing the object in the road and that is likely what caused her to crash.  Had she had on protective gear (ie: helmet), the likely would have saved her life (until the SUV hit her)  Bad way to go out IMHO.  thoughts and prayers to family and friends of the victim.

I speculate that your speculation is true, Denyse.  It doesn't seem very likely to me that a piece of tread could cause a motorcycle to crash unless the bike was leaned over in a turn.  I suppose it could flip up and get jammed between the tire and fender, or something else, but your speculation seems more likely to me.  Really sad.

250 Ninja.  Kawi green.

Brent

[aschendel]

freedom's a big responsibility...  extremely sad, no question about it, and you guys may be "the choir", perhaps, but it's not the government's job to make us make good personal decisions.  it irks me when tragedies are twisted for ill-gotten gains.  it sounds as though a helmet wasn't all she chose to do without, surviving a fall like that with effectively no gear (speculation base on the flip-flops in use) would have been awful too.

here's the mythbuster's thing:

Mythbusters dianamometer of death

furthermore, if the speculation (squared) above holds true and the debris wasn't the primary cause of the fall, but rather the loss of control due to operator inputs, safety gear may have been a good Plan B, but training and experience would have been a great Plan A.  easy to say, harder to do, for sure.

a.s.

[pkpk]

I feel very bad for the mother as she clearly tried to work hard at getting her daughter to wear gear.

However it bothers me that she seems to rationalize this as a simple, "If she only wore her helmet.....".  The updated police report made it clear the SUV struck her daughter and at speed, a helmet is probably not going to make a difference if there is massive trauma.  Her sister was interviewed by Fox@9 and it came out that she only had her license for 3 months.  I'm sure that factored into this.

[beedawg]

I have a hard time believing under-inflated retreads are no worse for falling apart than a factory tire under real world application.

I don't have any good reason to believe retreads fall apart any more often than conventional tires when run underinflated.

"The worn tread is buffed away and a new tread bonded to the tire body in a process very similar to the manufacture of a new tire. There are different processing techniques, but the ultimate objective is always the same - affixing a new tread through the application of heat, time and pressure.

"All commercial airlines, as well as military jet aircraft, use retreaded tires. In fact, nearly 80 percent of all aircraft tires now in service in the United States are retreads. More than 100,000 aircraft retreads are used annually with an average of 270 takeoffs and landings per tread life."

Now, that is from TRIB, the Tire Retread and Repair Information Bureau (http://www.retread.org/?page=AboutRetreading), so I'm sure they're putting their best spin on it, but they do use heat to bond the tread to the carcass just as they do in new tire manufacturing.

"Following the inspection and buffing process tires undergoing the hot cure (mold cure) process are covered with uncured rubber and then cured in a mould similar to that used to manufacture new tires. In the cold cure (precure) process a pre-cured tread strip or tread ring is applied to the casing, which is then placed in a rubber envelope under a vacuum and cured in a large heating chamber or autoclave." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retread

[pkpk]

So the next question is.....is half of those shards laying in the road actually factory tires that somehow delaminated?  (Not meant to be rhetorical, I just want to know if a factory tire also delaminates the same way.)  Were my assumptions all wrong all these years?

[beedawg]

I feel very bad for the mother as she clearly tried to work hard at getting her daughter to wear gear.

However it bothers me that she seems to rationalize this as a simple, "If she only wore her helmet.....".  The updated police report made it clear the SUV struck her daughter and at speed, a helmet is probably not going to make a difference if there is massive trauma.

A helmet might have tilted the odds in her favor.

One of the more interesting ideas I learned from Motorcyclist's "Blowing the Lid Off" article a few years ago was the idea that the effect of multiple injuries can be greater than the sum the individual effects of the injuries.  A head injury is more likely to kill you when you have a bunch of other injuries than it would be without any other injuries.  Maybe I'm extrapolating too far when I say that you're more likely to survive other injuries when you don't already have a traumatic head injury, or maybe I'm not.

"The likelihood of dying from a head injury goes up dramatically if you have other major injuries as well. It also goes up with age. Which means that a nice, easy AIS 3 head injury, which might be perfectly survivable on its own, can be the injury that kills you if you already have other major injuries. Which, as it happens, you are very likely to have in a serious motorcycle crash." -Motorcyclist magazine, June 2005

[beedawg]

So the next question is.....is half of those shards laying in the road actually factory tires that somehow delaminated?

I don't know.  I guess most of us have just always assumed that every tire gator out there had to be from a retread.  Where's the evidence?  How do we know that new tires don't lose tread the same way and with the same frequency as retreads?  I'm guessing we don't.  It just seemed obvious, so we never questioned it.