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Four words actually - stay away from them. The DOT requires big trucks to have "virgin steers", or in plain language, brand new non-recapped tires on the front wheels. But you can just about bet that everything else is a retreaded tire because they're a lot less expensive, and trucking companies are all about expenses.
Truckers refer to the caps on the tires as "gators", and the problem with them is that they can come off - particularly on very hot days. The new treads are vulcanized onto the old tire carcass, and vulcanizing is a heat process. A lot of truckers don't maintain their tire pressures like they should 'cause it takes forever to air up eighteen tires to 105 psi, and tires running at lower pressures in conjunction with hot pavement can really get hot. Hot enough to make the vulcanizing come loose, and the next thing you know you've got a gator flying through the air. They're big, heavy chunks of rubber, and they can literally knock your head off.
Just for fun, I did a little math. Lets say you've got a 25 pound chunk of rubber flying at 60mph. Using a firearms muzzle energy computer for a 175000 grain projectile (25 pounds X 7000 grains per pound) traveling at 88 fps (60 mph) it shows 3009 foot pounds of energy. To put that in perspective, a 44 magnum generates somewhere in the neighborhood of 750 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle.
I don't ride behind trucks, and when I need to pass one I don't fool around - I get past them, and I do it like I mean business.
Why am I even mentioning this stuff? Cause I just watched this video, and it got me thinking - Truck tire shreds on highway. Just thought I would pass it along...
Truckers refer to the caps on the tires as "gators", and the problem with them is that they can come off - particularly on very hot days. The new treads are vulcanized onto the old tire carcass, and vulcanizing is a heat process. A lot of truckers don't maintain their tire pressures like they should 'cause it takes forever to air up eighteen tires to 105 psi, and tires running at lower pressures in conjunction with hot pavement can really get hot. Hot enough to make the vulcanizing come loose, and the next thing you know you've got a gator flying through the air. They're big, heavy chunks of rubber, and they can literally knock your head off.
Just for fun, I did a little math. Lets say you've got a 25 pound chunk of rubber flying at 60mph. Using a firearms muzzle energy computer for a 175000 grain projectile (25 pounds X 7000 grains per pound) traveling at 88 fps (60 mph) it shows 3009 foot pounds of energy. To put that in perspective, a 44 magnum generates somewhere in the neighborhood of 750 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle.
I don't ride behind trucks, and when I need to pass one I don't fool around - I get past them, and I do it like I mean business.
Why am I even mentioning this stuff? Cause I just watched this video, and it got me thinking - Truck tire shreds on highway. Just thought I would pass it along...
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