XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.sf.science   
   From: john@jfeldredge.com   
      
   On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 19:15:07 +1300, Your Name wrote:   
      
   > In article , Robert Bannister   
   >  wrote:   
   >   
   >> On 20/01/2014 6:24 pm, Greg Goss wrote:   
   >> > Your Name  wrote:   
   >> >   
   >> > [cars vs horses as road hazards]   
   >> >>   
   >> >> Maybe not, but a driver can be spooked and lose control of the car.   
   >> >> Plus a car usually weighs quite a bit more and goes faster ...   
   >> >> therefore causing more damage.   
   >> >   
   >> > ...   
   >> >   
   >> >>> It's also quite rare these days to see a wheel come off.   
   >> >>   
   >> >> Rare, but not impossible - especially if whoever changed the tyre   
   >> >> didn't tighten the nuts properly.   
   >> >   
   >> > I've seen it.  I was on a major arterial roadway going perhaps 80 KhH   
   >> > (50 MPH) when I noticed brake lights and confusion ahead of me.  A   
   >> > moment later, I saw a truck wheel bouncing towards me, but by the   
   >> > time it reached me it was on the shoulder and heading off the roadway   
   >> > towards a "noise wall".  I don't know how solidly those noise walls   
   >> > are built, and I was well past before it hit.  It seems to have   
   >> > crossed fairly busy oncoming traffic at highway speed without hitting   
   >> > anyone.  I never saw the vehicle that it came from.   
   >> >   
   >> > A car I bought in 1979 had not had the pin placed properly in the   
   >> > "crown nut" that holds the front wheel on.  Since it was a cheap car,   
   >> > I lived with lousy handling that seemed to be inherent in buying a   
   >> > car for $400.  Eventually the nut slacked off to the point where a   
   >> > brake pad fell out, and I fixed the problem before anything major   
   >> > happened.   
   >> >   
   >> > One of my mother's favorite expressions when a conversation was   
   >> > getting more technical than she could follow was "I had a red one,   
   >> > but a wheel fell of."  After this case and a similar problem in 1976,   
   >> > she stopped using that phrase.   
   >> >   
   >> >> You do quite often see bits of shreaded truck tyres along the side   
   >> >> of the motorway too.   
   >> >   
   >> > If you've got dual wheels, it is often easier to drive with one of   
   >> > them flat to a place where you can get the tires changed than to do   
   >> > anything at the side of the road.  This generally results in the   
   >> > complete destruction of the already-dead tire.   
   >> >   
   >> >   
   >> I understand with those really large, multi-wheeled trucks that it is   
   >> quite difficult to tell whether a single tyre has blown.   
   >   
   > Probably impossible when you driving it, but should probably be   
   > something that is always checked at the both ends of the run, as well as   
   > when stopping for fuel.   
   >   
   > There was an accident here a couple of weeks ago where a cyclist was   
   > killed under a big truck trailer (the cyclist didn't stop at a red   
   > light, so it was his own fault), but the truck driver didn't know. He   
   > stopped further down the road after other drivers were madly honking   
   > their horns to alert him, and he thought there was something wrong with   
   > his truck until he got out and saw the commotion back at the   
   > intersection.   
      
   I once had to flag down a truck that was driving along with the brakes   
   locked on the empty flatbed trailer, meaning that they weren't rotating.   
   They weren't just leaving skid marks, they had actual flames coming from   
   them.  The driver had presumably forgotten to hook up the hoses for the   
   trailer air brakes.  The lack of any cargo on the trailer meant that the   
   driver hadn't noticed the extra drag.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)