Safety Saturday...

Great job Susan! Your positive thinking and a little good luck sure helped. As the old saying might go, "A new clean pair of drawers might be needed". Really glad all turned out for good.

Wow Susan,

I'm glad your skill and experience resulted in a good outcome.

The big thing is to not panic which is really difficult to do because you KNOW it could be really ugly really fast.

I've played this what if scenario of steer tire failure repeatedly since I was in CDL school. My dad used to talk about the horrors of one and often the driver didn't make it so this situation has been one of my biggest fears.. that and a rollover. Some drivers will never experience one in a very long career, but if it happens you have to know exactly what you're going to do.

Very often drivers can lose control, leave the roadway, roll over, etc. with catastrophic results.

The tire didn't "blow" in my case, so the wheel didn't do a hard jerk. The entire intact tread separated off the base of the tire and ended up on the inside of the wheel. Absolutely mind boggling but certainly a manufacturing defect.

Wow!
And thank the Lord you made it safely. Good reading and something to keep in mind as we drive anything.
Hoping you all have a Merry Christmas.
Kiss the grandbaby when you can.
Bill R

I'll add one more thing the old timers around here have taught me. If you need to get stopped a little sooner than what is possible by downshifting and using your brake pedal sparingly, grab a little bit of the hand spike (trailer brake). Loaded heavy like that assuming the roads are dry the chances of locking up your trailer tires are slim to none and you still get additional braking without using brakes on your steer axle. Worked wonders for me a few months ago coming down a 6-7% grade grossing 124,000 lbs and the steer tire popped.