How dangerous is a tire blowout on the highway?
When a vehicle is traveling on the highway at high speed, a tire explosion can cause loss of control, causing the vehicle to sway and possibly overturn.
According to the analysis of many experts, when the car runs on a highway with high roughness, the car moves at high speed, so the friction force is large, generating heat, causing the air to expand, making the tire prone to problems. If the tire is old, weak, or of poor quality, it is more likely to explode when running on the highway. Therefore, each car tire should be replaced after traveling 40,000 - 50,000 km or after 4-5 years.
Even if the tire surface is not worn much, the natural aging inside has already reduced the tire's load-bearing capacity. In addition, it is necessary to regularly monitor tire pressure, for easy monitoring, you can equip the tire pressure sensor.
During use, many car owners do not pay attention to checking their tires, leaving them too low or too high, causing the tires to deteriorate quickly. Especially in Vietnam's bad road conditions and in the hot season, the risk of tire explosion is even higher.
Therefore, you should check, maintain and rotate your tires regularly. If the tire is worn, replace it. Trying to reuse it will be very dangerous.
The older the car, the higher the chassis, the greater the danger.
With new car models, the electronic safety system is fully equipped, so when a tire blows out at high speed, the driver can handle the situation under control. However, with older cars, lacking many safety features or having them but not working, a tire blowout can be fatal.
Specifically, when a car suddenly has a flat tire, especially when driving on the highway, the car will sway and be difficult to control. On new cars today, this situation is intervened by safety systems such as electronic balance ESP, anti-rollover, traction control... to help the car quickly regain balance, helping the driver control and stop the car safely.
The first reflex of many people when dealing with a flat tire is to slam on the brakes to stop the car quickly. This is extremely dangerous, especially when the car has a flat tire while moving at high speed or on the highway.
Because sudden braking can easily cause the car to tilt, lose its center of gravity and traction, leading to overturning. This situation often occurs with high-chassis vehicles such as SUVs, Crossovers, pickup trucks, etc. When braking suddenly in case one wheel has exploded, the remaining wheels lose traction, skid, leading to loss of control, the driver turns the steering wheel left/right many times, the car loses control and collides with other obstacles such as embankments, slopes, other vehicles, leading to overturning.
For older cars, they are often not equipped with safety support features, small rims, thick tires, keeping the car in a straight and balanced state when encountering a tire blowout at high speed depends entirely on the driver's skills as well as luck.
With sedans that have a low center of gravity, if a tire blows out and the vehicle loses control, it is not easy to flip over if there is no other impact while the vehicle is sliding on the road such as hitting a railing, other vehicles moving together... The vehicle can only rotate but cannot flip over on its own.
Thus, if many "bad" factors are combined such as SUVs with high centers of gravity, old cars lacking electronic safety support features, and running at high speeds, when encountering a sudden tire explosion on the highway, the car is very likely to flip over. If the passengers inside are not wearing seat belts, the car flipping over can throw the passengers out, endangering their lives.
