When a truck tire shreds apart, is that really negligence?
When you’re barreling down the highway at full speed, one of the last things you want to see is a semitruck peel off a tire right in front of you. That long, loose piece of rubber can end up causing you to wreck if it hits your wheels the right way — and the truck also stands a good chance of wrecking. The tire can also blow out entirely, sending the truck careening.
If a semitruck or some other commercial vehicle has a problem with its tire, is that really negligence?
Yes, it absolutely is. A tire shouldn’t peel off like that and it shouldn’t blow out. It only happens because the tire is defective or being misused. In other words, it’s a preventable issue.
Normally, tire treads slowly wear down over time. They don’t peel off in one giant strip. When that happens, there’s a possibility that the tire was retreaded, which means that the outer layer of tread was added on after the original tire wore down. This is done because it’s cheaper than replacing the whole tire — although a retread is, at best, a temporary fix. The odds are high that the retreaded part hadn’t properly adhered to the rest of the tire.
A peeled tire can also happen because a tire is overloaded. When semis force a tire to labor under an excessive weight, the weight weakens the tire’s sidewalls. The whole tire can come apart. Excess air pressure from overinflation can do the same thing.
Sometimes, a tire shreds on the highway because it’s simply a bad tire — but that’s a signal that either the design of the tire was poor in the first place or something went wrong in the manufacturing process. Either way, that’s also negligence.
If you’ve been injured after a wreck with a truck or because a truck’s tire shredded while you were next to the truck on the road, make sure that you find out more about your right to claim compensation for your injuries and losses.