Green

This isn't going to end well

Yesterday I was driving into Belfast along the M2, travelling a shade under 80mph in light traffic. All at once there was a shudder and a louder-than-you’d-like noise from the rear driver’s side, as I looked into the rear view mirror I saw dust, a few bits of black stuff flying into the path of the following car and that same car maneouvering into the inside lane like something from NASCAR. The tail end of the car is fish tailing left and so little time has passed that it’s only now I’m having thoughts that sound like english. First thought, “This isn’t going to end well.”

As it happened it was all OK, dramatic but OK, it kept pretty straight and it ended up just short of the inside barrier. I was white as a ghost to be fair, images of me and car barrell-rolling sideways down the M2 at speed were fairly large in my mind.

As you can see it was pretty nasty, the tire is split and delaminated, the only thing holding it together is the bead. The tire well is half destroyed too, mudflap assembly was inside the tire well and pointing 180° in the wrong direction and had to be torn off a long with a few other lumps of plastic in order to make it home.

The interweb says that during a blowout you need to keep at least constant pressure on the accelerator or even a bit more in the first instant to counter the pull of the dead tire, then keep the car straight and slowly bring it to a halt. Which is pretty much what I did, so 5 gold stars to me.

«1 CommentsMay 1, MMVI»

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