I was riding in a Ford Aerostar van once, on the highway. And as we were passing a semi, one of the tires of the semi catastrophically failed while we were right next to it. Thankfully, no one was injured. But it exploded with such force that it actually rocked the van, dented the sliding door panel, and pieces of the tire damaged the wooden trailer we had in tow. Being next to one of those when it fails like that is no joke.
@@toe-b203 We weren't cruising as slow as possible next to the semi, we were passing. Just happened to be right next to the tire the moment it catastrophically failed.
your folks had some bad luck that day, worse luck for the trucker. BUT your folks kept there head on the shoulders so I call that a win. So is the ice cream.
Welllll, I'd say the truck tire missle was Plausible, cuz it was shot straight, no loss of energy. In the original blowout, the strip of tire was flung, not shot. The energy would have dissipated in a motion like that, caused by the rotation of the axle. Right? While fast, it wasn't a dart. They sent that piece like a baseball at the practice cages lol Still, plausible, IMO, just not confirmed
@@3EatDirt3 I have to disagree with you - as I've seen plenty of truck tires blow on the highways (I drive trucks for a living). SHOOTING a truck tire won't do much, true, but what Adam and Jamie did in the shop is about as close as you can get without actually blowing a tire on the highway with a biker right next to it. The tread WILL come off (whether its a retread or brand new - they're built the same way) and it WILL come flying out. Gawd help anyone that tread hits....
@@3EatDirt3 I think they based it on the actual ejection velocity they saw in the high speed, not the rotational speed of the tire, so they aimed to have the flying pieces match flight velocity once there was no outside force moving it.
If that "gator" hits you at highway speed you are dead. As a diesel mechanic I have had a tire blow up in my face and luckily for me all it did was lift me off the ground and shred my shirt, felt like someone had kicked me in the chest.
Once saw a split rim come apart under inflation while being held down by an in-ground car hoist: It lifted that rack and cylinder up 6 inches and almost cost me a good pair of pants.
My dad saw a guy over inflate a tire when I was younger and it cut his head off. My uncle was airing up a tire and it blew him up against the wall. Stuff aint no joke
@@ThePsho Honestly with how cheap storage is these days, and you have a NAS at home, it's not that bad. I mean yeah, it is a lot very quickly, but if you need 80TB or 150TB is almost a negligible price difference. I've gone down the route of saving my favourite shows in as highdef as I can find. Though 4k is a ton of data, I think oppenheimer is about 90GB, but for some stuff, worth it IMO
@@thegraynoah fair points. In my mind it was less about the storage capacity cost and more about the length of time it takes to rebuild a 20TB drive opposed to a 6TB. Granted that doesn't happen very often, but it only took one drive fail before I started dreading it. I think ideally I'd prefer a bunch of small/medium drives. Almost certainly not the most economical choice in terms of cost and power consumption, but it somehow feels safer. Honestly, I only got into servers a few months ago, so I'm still learning by trial and error. Running unRAID on an optiplex, my first roadblock was not enough sata ports. Then I set up a bunch of automation with -arrs and naively gave access and free rein to my wife and sister. The amount of TV shows was freaking brutal, so I set it to prioritize 720p. They haven't complained yet, so I'm letting it roll for now. Incidentally, they may not even know what resolution is. But you're spot on about max resolution for certain movies. Superhero films, movies with a lot of action, visual splendors like Avatar. They get 4k privileges. Gilmore Girls, The Notebook, rom coms. Not so much.
One of my favorite shows ever, when I was a kid and still to this day! As an aside, a dyno doesn't spin the tire, it measures the energy from a spinning tire. Just for the sake of getting all the educational facts straight lol
in 1978, my girlfriend was driving down the freeway when a big-rig blew a tire next to her. Debry crashed through the passenger window and cut up her face leaving permanent scars. It totaled her car. She survived, but it could have easily killed her. Since then I aggressively pass trucks rather than staying next to them.
Although I was many car-lengths behind when it happened, I've been behind a truck when one of its tires blew and god, I couldn't drive next to a semi for weeks after aha. And I was definitely thinking of this episode. The shrapnel of it wound up being easy to dodge, but the explosive sound was terrifying. So this episode takes on a whole new vibe now that I've experienced it IRL (not the beheading though lmao)😂
I was driving about 30-40 feet behind a semi-truck in a Hyundai Accent. I heard this massive pop noise. All of a sudden, a tread shoots toward my car and hits the front of the vehicle. After watching this episode, seeing what it did to a car window, I feel truly blessed to be alive.
I used to write on the back end of trailers I pulled, “Decapitation by Retread: Mythbusters CONFIRMED. I didn’t have too many tailgaters when I did this. Made me thing that a trailer made into a rolling safety billboard would definitely get four-wheelers to behave…
Those are called split rims, they most certainly can kill you. they are especially dangerous when airing them up, I used to have a dump truck with those, I changed many tires, the trick is to make sure the ring is well seated in the groove, as you air it up, and that there is no wear on the ring or groove. I stood behind and to the side of the tire and passed the airchuck through the rim to air it up from behind while tapping the rim into the groove. they make big pipe cages you can put the tire inside of while airing it up so that if it explodes the cage catches the ring and wheel.
@@stevewhite3424 That's a total myth - no split rims are actually illegal for highway use. A lot of tire shops refuse to work on them though. There are also lots of different types as well. The commonly referred to 'widow maker' is a particular type of split rim. Things like forklifts and heavy equipment still use them and always will.
@deezelfairy FMCSA 393.205 Industrial machinery is irrelevant And has nothing to do with the clear context of the thread which was highway use of such rims on highway use trucks and trailers .. The mythbusters we're not using some kind of industrial machine for their video. But you know that, apparently , you just wanted to show what a big brain youthink you have.
@@stevewhite3424 FMCSA 393.205 Wheels. CFR Section USA (a) Wheels and rims shall not be cracked or broken. (b) Stud or bolt holes on the wheels shall not be elongated (out of round). (c) Nuts or bolts shall not be missing or loose. You've very much misinterpreted this.
As a kid I've always wanted to do the Nightrider move myself just to experience it at least once!! This episode will forever be my favorite Mythbusters episode hands down!! In fact it was this episode that got me wanting to do stunts professionally in general!!
Wow you were really young if you were watching as it first aired. Granted Discovery did rerun their highest rated show years after the show ended. Well, the Adam and Jamie version at least; I heard the reboot wasn't as interesting.
My brother witnessed a truck tire blowout a couple of years back. A chunk of the tread did end up going through the window of another vehicle and struck the driver in the neck. My brother rendered initial first aid until another driver (who happened to be a nurse) came to take over, then he dropped back to make the 911 call. He's never told me much in the way of detail about what it looked like, beyond "there was a LOT of blood" and that the thing that stayed with him the most was the fear in the guy's eyes. He was contacted about a week later by the injured driver's wife, who let him know that he had survived following emergency surgery, though he was facing a long and difficult recovery. I've been a little more nervous about driving alongside semi trucks ever since then.
I was stopped at a light behind a semi trailer and one of the rear tandems on the trailer exploded. Loud doesn't quite describe it. Beyond the noise, all of the dirt and rocks on both the road and the trailer itself hit my car ridiculously hard. Yes it was quite a bit like a bomb went off.
God, this takes me back.. It's both depressing, but reassuring, that in 10-20 years, I'll be looking back at this show with the same fondness that my parents looked back at the 60s-70s.
The original highway car driving up a ramp was in the 1969 film The Italian Job where three Minis (not one, three) were driven up ramps into the back of a bus.
I remember how 80s the early 90s were. I have a theory that it really takes until mid-decade for the style that a decade will be associated with to really be defined.
Couldn't agree more. I remember 2000-2003 being very 90's esque. Then when 2004 came things began to change. Some 90's hairstyles would hold on through 2005 like the curtains hairstyle which has made a comeback in recent years. I miss the 90's and the early 00's.
Recapped tires can be very very dangerous if they are over inflated or the truck is over weight. The tread which can weigh 100+lbs can peel off in 1-3 large pieces. Recap sheds can easily total a car at highway speed. Can't even imagine how much damage it could to to a human body but it would be ALOT.
I know that all or at least much of Europe has banned retreads because of their failure issues. The huge chunks of tire they leave on the road can be pretty dangerous as well even once they have finished off their kinetic adventure from the tire. Especially at night to motorcyclists but can also damage the undercarriage of cars.
I know a fella who did tire work on semi's. He repaired a punctured in the tread of a tire on a budd wheel. That tire had a small gouge in the side wall that didn't appear to be very deep at all. After the repair he put the tire in a cage and began airing it back up. He had approximately 30 pounds of pressure in the tire when that tire blew. When it blew he was knocked back against a wall about 7 feet behind him, his trousers were literally blown off him up to the crotch and he suffered a concussion. He did heal and was ok. In another instance, a guy was airing a tire on a Dayton 2 piece rim on the fuel island at a truck stop. He had the tire laying on the pavement and was bending over the tire to air it up. Suddenly the ring blew off the rim and decapitated the man. The ring was either worn out or was not seated properly...that's what the police report stated.
As a truck driver for decades Ive seen the real power of a truck tire failing catastrophically. It is literally like a bomb going off. It can blow fenders off of trucks, or shear off 1 inch steel.
Truck driver Hoss here, I was running out of Columbus Ohio the other day and the Pepsi semi beside me blew off one of his rear tandems and luckily I was in my rig and swerved just enough to let the strip of tire go in between my steer tires and pass under me without hitting anything else other than the cars behind me
When I worked in a tire shop in college they sent me to a 3 day training course. They put a truck tire with a cracked rim under a 73 Chevy Impala. Inflated to just over spec pressure. When it blew it lifted the Impala a good 10 feet in the air.
Truck tyres are dangerous. To get them to explode just run them below the proper pressure and at full weight, I was following another truck and the bit of tyre took out the radiator on mine.
I was driving next to an 18 wheeler (big rig) when the rear tire exploded. It sounded like a bomb going off and debris was all over the place. Without a doubt if you were standing next to one of those tires when it exploded, it's not unreasonable that you'd be injured or worse. It was a terrifying experience
I have not watched the entire episode yet, but the one thing I think is missing from the blowing tire experiment is the weight from what the rig would be normally carrying.
As a truck driver I can confirm tire blow outs are no joke. Even not on the road but parked they are dangerous. A buddy of mine went to the hospital after his tire blew as he was inspecting it. Typically there is at least 100psi of air in that tire. I've seen them rip fenders off damage fuel tanks they are nasty. Which is why you don't want to hang out along side one. If you're passing keep going don't slow down.
i felt so much pain, when i heard that 85 ford start up and the rattle of a 6.9 idi graced my ears. i know you cant save them all, but a piece of me died.
Haha yea as a kid those kinds of thoughts never even occurred to me, but now that I own an old truck like that, it definitely doesn't feel right anymore
Amazing, here in SC a few years ago a couple on the interstate were killed on their motorcycle from a big rig tire blowing up. Truck driver never knew it blew til he stopped miles later and found out someone was killed later too
if you're old like me and remember slit-rim truck wheels you'd know that truck tires are way safer now then they were then, but they were way more dangerous for the person working on the wheel than for anyone else
Great ep. Got personal experience with two of the myths. Back in the ''80's I got the notion to try drafting a truck doing about 80 on I-80 in Wyoming. Closest I got was about a car length back but even there I was barely touching the throttle. More recently, was stuck in stationary traffic in north Houston when the tire on a semi in the adjacent lane let go, with enough force that I thought someone had crashed into one of the other vehicles. Drivers up and down the line were getting out of their cars to look for damage.
If you are going to sit behind a truck that close, tell them. I do slipstream, you have to be extremely careful and it does take a toll, you have to keep your concentration hard on the back of that truck. If they know you are there they will do things like put their foot on the brake lightly before braking so the brake lights come on before they start to stop. Also, tell them when you are going and say thanks.
One of the biggest factors influencing the chance of blowouts is the weight of the trailer against the pavement. The heaviest loaded trucks tend to blowout tires the most often. It would have added some complexity to the experiment but maybe they could have progressively loaded more weight under different conditions and gotten a better blowout that way. I also believe that the rotation of the tire at highway speeds is a large part of the chance of blowouts and adds a lot of momentum behind the debris. Truck tires have serious potential for harm and people should minimize how much time they spend driving next to them whenever possible.
Ive always been scared of being in the car near big rigs. Ive always been reluctant to be near a big truck but they have always fascinated me. Same way that huge animals fascinate me, kinda funny how that works in my brain
I knew a young man who was killed by an exploding tire. The tire was on a big forest machine and they were heating the lug nuts to get them loose, not real sure why the tire blew but possibly the heat accumulated enough to increase the pressure and maybe the tire had an unknown defect. I can't see the heat blowing a good tire, so that was my guess: the lug nuts are on the center of the wheel like most things, so not that much heat would have gotten into the tire. The locals nearby said it sounded like a bomb going off and unfortunately the young man was standing right alongside it. He didn't make it to hospital in the resultant ambulance, from what I recall. Thing is, using a torch to heat stubborn nuts is something many of us have done. If I'd been trying to remove those wheels I would probably have done the same.
I have done the drafting behind rigs before back in the 90s when i was young and dumb lol I had a compact hatchback that would stay right behind the truck while in neutral and coasting and sometimes I even had to hit the breaks because of an actual vacuum action going on. You should do that experiment again and put the car in neutral when you get in that bubble about 8-10 behind the rig. Using a smaller lighter car would work better as well.
Back in the 70's or early 80's a school bus was on the freeway full of kids in orange county California and the retread shot through the wheel well and the seat grabbing a child, killing her. There is now a heavy metal plate to prevent that now. I'll never forget seeing that on the news.
Semi truck tires mostly rupture because they are under inflated and get very hot which destabilizes the sidewall and damages the belts. I’ve seen a tire blow from over pressure while it was in a cage which was made from 3” steel pipe. It destroyed that cage. It would definitely kill someone standing next to it and that was a tire that wasn’t spinning. Shooting a slug into it wasn’t ever going to do a thing. We puncture tires at speed all the time including sidewalls. They’re designed to not catastrophically fail when that happens and if it’s not a steer tire, they can often be repaired. That standard tire pressure of 115psi is a cold pressure and never on a standard trailer. You only see pressure that high on steer tires and certain super heavy duty specialty trailers. It rises to around 130+psi as the tire warms up. I have a monitoring system on my tires that measures temperature and the hottest I’ve ever seen one was 160°F on a 120° day in Baker California. The pressure on them got to 135# which is the highest I’ve seen. A little perspective on a high speed blowout. I hit a piece of banding strap on the road at 65mph the ripped the tire and blew it out. It was a steer which in this truck is actually maintained at 120psi cold. When it blew it took most of the fender on the truck with it as well as the headlight and some of the wiring on my firewall which is behind a fender shield when the hood is closed. Around $8000 in damage plus a new wheel and tire. Most of the force was linear from front to back instead of out the sidewall. That’s how the force travels in the vast majority of blowout. The real danger isn’t generally shrapnel from the tire. Especially in the case of steer blowouts it’s the possible loss of control that can occur. I prepared as soon as I knew I couldn’t avoid the thing and was textbook in my reaction and still moved to the side of the blowout two feet before I got total control. Most of the time, we don’t know or suspect something is about to happen until after it happens. It’s not uncommon to jerk over and entire lane or leave the road entirely in a blowout situation when it’s so sudden and unexpected. The smart money is just not hang out on the side of a truck at all if you can avoid it. As far as drafting goes, I see it all the time and it’s a miracle there aren’t more accidents. I’m all for saving fuel but you can’t spend that money you saved when you’re dead.
The day this episode aired, I came home from school to my mom franticly telling me to come help her move the storm drain cover in the backyard There was a bunch of ducklings in the drain, we fished ‘em out one by one, put ‘em in a box filled with grass with some water I remember having to miss the last chunk of this episode after the final commercial break, to go dig for worms in the old garden to feed the ducks We took ‘em to a nature center a few days later Was quite the experience
Yeah, Italian Job version was a lot harder than Knight Rider. They had 2 ramps one for each side of the car, and had to stop the 3 cars one behind the other.
@@LarryAllenTonar been driving for 16 years, have always drafted big rigs while traveling long distances and never had an issue. Physics is the key factor in that as the semi weighs substantially more than your average car on the road, which means it takes a lot longer for said truck to slow down than said car.
Drafting does save fuel. In 1990, my dad and I were moving to GA. He was driving a GMC S-15 towing a trailer and I was driving a 1981 Ford Escort wagon, following him. When in Iowa we had driven over 100 miles and the gas gauge in my wagon had barely moved. We pulled into a gas station and I filled up so I could check the accuracy of the gauge. I figured out the mileage to over 40 miles per gallon, when I had been averaging around 30 miles per gallon before. i didn't realize that I was drafting at the time, I was just trying to avoid being separated while travelling.
The knight Rider stunt was taken from the old first gen arcade game SPYHUNTER. One thing they didn't take into account is that the ramp length that gets the car up is greater than the height of the trailer. It swings down from the trailer and when closed- it becomes the back gate. This ramp is too long to do this. And a shorter ramp would not accommodate the wheelbase of the camaro
i mean i know they’re all professionals who hire professionals but damn, that stunt driver is an amazing teacher. the intro into the stunt driving education being exposure therapy to spinning out is brilliant.
I've seen a show where 2 people stood up in the bed of a Pick Em Up at 50+m/h speeds and tossed a ball at least 1' back & forth[the ball was free of all 4 hands & 20 digits for most of the distance] and it went right to each person's hands, instead flying out behind them like I thought it would.
I have driven semi's for 44yrs and yes when a tire blows it ain't no joke. The last time it happened was just before I retired the tread tore a stainless steel quarter fender off the truck I mean ripped it off. They didn't do the test right the trailer needs to be loaded to maximum gross weight not an empty one Hell on the Kenworth test track they test different weight trucks throughout the year..Ya might want to check it out
I used to cycle like a madman in the city all year around, even in the dead of winter. I used to draft behind city busses and it made it SO much easier on me. Plus, the heat from the back of the bus would warm me up too 😊
Many years ago in a 1970 Plymouth Swinger 6cly 225 My pal and I where going to his parents cottage , when we came up behind a truck . So been young and broke I flashed the trucker I could see his face and I tucked in behind him tight and tried to stay 5 to 10 feet away it was easier than I thought , other than some good wind buffeting off the sides he sucked us down the road just fine . He would just flash his brakes lights to give me a sec to back off if he had to slow down . We followed him more than a half hour or better. When we got to our turn off I pulled back out flashed my lights gave him a honk , he turned off and on his lights and then gave a blast of his horn . And later I drank those extra beers in his memory he knew exactly what I did . Any motorcyclist will tell the crazy amount of wind comming off the front of a semi especially an over cab truck when passing . You must lean into the unseen air blast , and the lighter the bike the greater the push . Especially into a a good headwind and cross breeze going under a bridge just use the force Luke !
A trucker was trying to repair his tire near our local football field in the 1980s. He failed to attach the lockdown rim correctly before he reinflated the tire. The exploding tire splattered into a chain link fence killing him instantly.
I remember when this episode first aired. Jamie and Adam had to lock down the passenger side drive wheel of their puckup truck because they were concerned about getting an inconsistent launch speed for the tire tread. Since they locked down the passenger wheel, that caused the driver side drive wheel to spin at double the speed of the speedometer reading due to the properties of the open differential they used. At 45:16 you can clearly see the passenger drive wheel is not spinning while the drivers side wheel is spinning. So when they launched that piece of rubber at 40MPH it was actually launched at 80MPH.
I used tp tailgate trucks when I had a small MG sports car and it certainly meant that I could lift a lot of my foot pressure off the accelerator so I would have certainly been saving fuel. I don`t recall how close but I guess about 15 feet, silly boy!!!
Back in `73, I had a truck tire in front of me shed all outside rubber (¿defective retread?) at a "safe" distance. Huge tire chunks were still bouncing around, with no time to "dodge" the moving debris! I thought I might lose one of my tires or the oil pan, but was able to keep on driving.
The human brain takes about 3/10 of a second to react. This is so consistent that drag racing lights have this delay built in to yellow to green so you cannot cheat the light by guessing.
at one point when i was in really bad situation and had no money at all, i had to drive like 400km to get to my friend's place as i had nowhere else to stay, i did extreme close drafting as this was only way i was able to make it. i was driving basically bumper to bumper and as it was automatic, i always brake with left foot, so i kept my left foot on the brake at all times just in case trucks decides to brake. it saved me so much fuel, it was amazing. so in critical conditions it's totally worth the risk.
The ramp being wet probably made it a lot easier - the rear wheels (drive wheels on that Firebird) would spin, rather than accelerate the car, when they made the transition from the road surface. You can see it happening @ 41:20. Too bad about the passenger-side mirror, though...
I experienced a rig blowing a tire while I was behind it on my motorcycle. I was not following it, it had just passed me and then changed lanes in front of me as the tire trailer blew and the complete tread came right at me. I had no time to react, and I heard "WHOOSH!" and the tread flipped end over end with the steel belts hanging out right past my left leg and shoulder. It would have killed me for sure.
I used to drive Ford van for living, shutter installs, I traveled all over the state, say 500km per day . Coming home on the highway I used to tailgate trucks at 100km per hour. Saved heaps of fuel, and I can always stop my van faster than 35 ton truck.
I still make sure to keep my head clear (of the potential blast zone) when inflating tires on my vehicles to this day because I've seen what an exploding tire can do to a person.
I LOVE THIS SHOW & ALL 5 OF IT'S TESTERS. I just want to say to Jaime: I love the line about getting the tire up to speed and induce a failure. There's pure insanity in picturing that.
Decreasing the air pressure increases the contact patch which generates more heat in the tire causing it to overinflate and fail wherever there’s an existing flaw
In the late 1970s I was hitchhiking and got a ride with a guy who drafted a semi, I mean he was right up on it and the truck was going really fast too. That was a long time ago but the phrase "scared shitless" comes to mind, I was definitely glad to get out of that car.
I've witnessed a passenger car run over an 18-wheeler's discarded tread, on the interstate, and it whip up from under the car slapping the passenger front door and cut a gash in the steel, over a foot long, and inch wide in the middle! Those things are no joke! 👍
What they're missing on testing a blowout is the other tire and weight. They are correct that it's usually under inflated tires that blow, but the other tire is properly inflated and therefore slightly larger in diameter. The under inflated tires needs to spin faster but can't. After miles of scrubbing since it can't turn fast enough it builds heat in the tread and belts eventually causing the catastrophic failure they're looking for.
I used to go to this taco truck, parked across the street from a gas station in east LA. One night, the truck wasn't in its regular spot. It was parked 100 yards down the road. I asked why they moved. "We couldn't park there, because of a death investigation". I learned later that a guy, working the tire machine in the gas station, had his head blown through the roof, as he was trying to weld a cracked rim. His head went through the roof, and landed across the street, fifty yards away. They ended up firing him.
I've seen enough gators on the highway that a new fear has been unlocked. Also, if the rubber is launched backwards at 40mph while you're driving towards it at 55mph you stand even less of a chance.
I was driving right next to an 18-wheeler when a tire exploded. It shook the whole car, and rubber went flying everywhere. We were going about 45mph. I was thankful that no windows were broken. It definitely felt like enough force to kill someone.
My best friend was killed servicing a piece of farm equipment. He was filling the tire with air on a split rim. The rim separated explosively and crushed Shane’s skull. The only good news was he died instantly. They said he didn’t suffer. But he was in that field for over an hour, by himself until the worker returned and found him. This was in 1989 and no cell phones. The farm only communicated by CB radio and it took time for the Mercy Flight to respond. As bad as it devastated me, I can’t imagine how that farm hand felt. Shane had a working relationship with many of the farmers and ranchers since he serviced heavy equipment.
Back in the late 70s, I worked at a full service station. Our boss absolutely forbid us from working on any split rims. He described what had happened to an employee at another service station. I took it to heart and decided the voice of experience should take precedence over a need for profit or ego. Very sorry to hear about your friend.
We were coming home in a Pontiac Grand Prix when a semi beside us blew a tire. It threw tire shrapnel all over, but caused no damage. Scared the crap out of the wife and kids though!😂
I was riding in a Ford Aerostar van once, on the highway. And as we were passing a semi, one of the tires of the semi catastrophically failed while we were right next to it. Thankfully, no one was injured. But it exploded with such force that it actually rocked the van, dented the sliding door panel, and pieces of the tire damaged the wooden trailer we had in tow. Being next to one of those when it fails like that is no joke.
Just seeing 'ford Aerostar' ignited loads of nostalgia 😂
Glad you made it out of that one ok
@@spuddawg02 My sister and I got ice cream out of the ordeal.
I still dont understand why people cruise as slow as possible next to semis.
@@toe-b203 We weren't cruising as slow as possible next to the semi, we were passing. Just happened to be right next to the tire the moment it catastrophically failed.
your folks had some bad luck that day, worse luck for the trucker. BUT your folks kept there head on the shoulders so I call that a win. So is the ice cream.
Adam walking under that forklift upset OSHA inspectors everywhere
21:11. 🤕🦷🦷
Yes very stupid very stupid.
@lextheap1638 Even OSHA would turn a bind eye if it meant never hearing of that clown again.
And they were so scared of tailgating
@@I_Am_Your_Problem whos the clown? also, who hurt you?
Three Confirmed results was rare on Mythbusters, for sure!!
Welllll, I'd say the truck tire missle was Plausible, cuz it was shot straight, no loss of energy.
In the original blowout, the strip of tire was flung, not shot. The energy would have dissipated in a motion like that, caused by the rotation of the axle. Right? While fast, it wasn't a dart. They sent that piece like a baseball at the practice cages lol
Still, plausible, IMO, just not confirmed
@@3EatDirt3 I have to disagree with you - as I've seen plenty of truck tires blow on the highways (I drive trucks for a living). SHOOTING a truck tire won't do much, true, but what Adam and Jamie did in the shop is about as close as you can get without actually blowing a tire on the highway with a biker right next to it. The tread WILL come off (whether its a retread or brand new - they're built the same way) and it WILL come flying out. Gawd help anyone that tread hits....
@@3EatDirt3 I think they based it on the actual ejection velocity they saw in the high speed, not the rotational speed of the tire, so they aimed to have the flying pieces match flight velocity once there was no outside force moving it.
If that "gator" hits you at highway speed you are dead. As a diesel mechanic I have had a tire blow up in my face and luckily for me all it did was lift me off the ground and shred my shirt, felt like someone had kicked me in the chest.
Once saw a split rim come apart under inflation while being held down by an in-ground car hoist: It lifted that rack and cylinder up 6 inches and almost cost me a good pair of pants.
My dad saw a guy over inflate a tire when I was younger and it cut his head off. My uncle was airing up a tire and it blew him up against the wall. Stuff aint no joke
Damn, I'm glad you were alright. That's crazy.
I've been blown across the shop by a bubble going boom. That one sucked
Glad you’re okay. I would have shat my pants.
Things are good, I got mythbusters whenever I need it and I didn't have to pirate a good chunk of a terabyte!
Lol, I hear ya. TV show episodes add up real quick. I've learned to accept 720p.
I have these downloaded but reading the comments added a little extra.
@ThePsho 720 has become my ideal resolution for balance of visual quality and storage/data.
@@ThePsho Honestly with how cheap storage is these days, and you have a NAS at home, it's not that bad. I mean yeah, it is a lot very quickly, but if you need 80TB or 150TB is almost a negligible price difference.
I've gone down the route of saving my favourite shows in as highdef as I can find. Though 4k is a ton of data, I think oppenheimer is about 90GB, but for some stuff, worth it IMO
@@thegraynoah fair points. In my mind it was less about the storage capacity cost and more about the length of time it takes to rebuild a 20TB drive opposed to a 6TB. Granted that doesn't happen very often, but it only took one drive fail before I started dreading it. I think ideally I'd prefer a bunch of small/medium drives. Almost certainly not the most economical choice in terms of cost and power consumption, but it somehow feels safer.
Honestly, I only got into servers a few months ago, so I'm still learning by trial and error. Running unRAID on an optiplex, my first roadblock was not enough sata ports. Then I set up a bunch of automation with -arrs and naively gave access and free rein to my wife and sister. The amount of TV shows was freaking brutal, so I set it to prioritize 720p. They haven't complained yet, so I'm letting it roll for now. Incidentally, they may not even know what resolution is.
But you're spot on about max resolution for certain movies. Superhero films, movies with a lot of action, visual splendors like Avatar. They get 4k privileges. Gilmore Girls, The Notebook, rom coms. Not so much.
One of my favorite shows ever, when I was a kid and still to this day!
As an aside, a dyno doesn't spin the tire, it measures the energy from a spinning tire. Just for the sake of getting all the educational facts straight lol
in 1978, my girlfriend was driving down the freeway when a big-rig blew a tire next to her. Debry crashed through the passenger window and cut up her face leaving permanent scars. It totaled her car. She survived, but it could have easily killed her. Since then I aggressively pass trucks rather than staying next to them.
Rip Grant we all miss you
He passed away?
@@cooliobroski3008yup in 2020 of an aneurysm
Yes we do a great mind gone way way to soon
@@ZombieGaming212I know it sounds morbid but it doesn't anyone remember him passing away in like 2013.. not 2020?
Insanely sad. 😢😢
Although I was many car-lengths behind when it happened, I've been behind a truck when one of its tires blew and god, I couldn't drive next to a semi for weeks after aha. And I was definitely thinking of this episode. The shrapnel of it wound up being easy to dodge, but the explosive sound was terrifying. So this episode takes on a whole new vibe now that I've experienced it IRL (not the beheading though lmao)😂
Yep I live close to a highway and it sounds like a gunshot when one blows.
I was driving about 30-40 feet behind a semi-truck in a Hyundai Accent.
I heard this massive pop noise. All of a sudden, a tread shoots toward my car and hits the front of the vehicle. After watching this episode, seeing what it did to a car window, I feel truly blessed to be alive.
I used to write on the back end of trailers I pulled, “Decapitation by Retread: Mythbusters CONFIRMED.
I didn’t have too many tailgaters when I did this.
Made me thing that a trailer made into a rolling safety billboard would definitely get four-wheelers to behave…
Can you really call yourself a trucker if you're not constantly on the lookout for four-wheelers doing something dumb on the highway?
The rim lock ring that some big trucks have sometimes gets ejected on those explosions and they're deadly
Those are called split rims, they most certainly can kill you. they are especially dangerous when airing them up, I used to have a dump truck with those, I changed many tires, the trick is to make sure the ring is well seated in the groove, as you air it up, and that there is no wear on the ring or groove. I stood behind and to the side of the tire and passed the airchuck through the rim to air it up from behind while tapping the rim into the groove. they make big pipe cages you can put the tire inside of while airing it up so that if it explodes the cage catches the ring and wheel.
@@clinthowe7629It's good to know that split rims have been illegal in the United States for many, many years..
@@stevewhite3424 That's a total myth - no split rims are actually illegal for highway use. A lot of tire shops refuse to work on them though.
There are also lots of different types as well. The commonly referred to 'widow maker' is a particular type of split rim.
Things like forklifts and heavy equipment still use them and always will.
@deezelfairy FMCSA 393.205
Industrial machinery is irrelevant And has nothing to do with the clear context of the thread which was highway use of such rims on highway use trucks and trailers ..
The mythbusters we're not using some kind of industrial machine for their video. But you know that, apparently , you just wanted to show what a big brain youthink you have.
@@stevewhite3424 FMCSA 393.205 Wheels.
CFR Section
USA
(a) Wheels and rims shall not be cracked or broken.
(b) Stud or bolt holes on the wheels shall not be elongated (out of round).
(c) Nuts or bolts shall not be missing or loose.
You've very much misinterpreted this.
Thank you for making these so accessible I’ve loved this show ever since I first saw it as a kid
As a kid I've always wanted to do the Nightrider move myself just to experience it at least once!! This episode will forever be my favorite Mythbusters episode hands down!! In fact it was this episode that got me wanting to do stunts professionally in general!!
I loved myth busters as a kid and now I’m an adult I still love it! ❤
You're still a kid lol
@@SynthfulDuck look at grandpa over here
Step sis
Wow you were really young if you were watching as it first aired. Granted Discovery did rerun their highest rated show years after the show ended. Well, the Adam and Jamie version at least; I heard the reboot wasn't as interesting.
@@SynthfulDuck try telling that to my mother
The nice knowing you handshake before the 2 foot driving part with grant hits different now that he’s passed
My brother witnessed a truck tire blowout a couple of years back. A chunk of the tread did end up going through the window of another vehicle and struck the driver in the neck. My brother rendered initial first aid until another driver (who happened to be a nurse) came to take over, then he dropped back to make the 911 call. He's never told me much in the way of detail about what it looked like, beyond "there was a LOT of blood" and that the thing that stayed with him the most was the fear in the guy's eyes.
He was contacted about a week later by the injured driver's wife, who let him know that he had survived following emergency surgery, though he was facing a long and difficult recovery.
I've been a little more nervous about driving alongside semi trucks ever since then.
Grant being a machine driving bumper to bumper behind the semi truck is the image I always see when I think of Mythbusters.
R.I.P. Grant
I was stopped at a light behind a semi trailer and one of the rear tandems on the trailer exploded. Loud doesn't quite describe it. Beyond the noise, all of the dirt and rocks on both the road and the trailer itself hit my car ridiculously hard. Yes it was quite a bit like a bomb went off.
Kinda funny that 10 feet tailgate would be completely mental, but I see it happening everyday and a lot of times.
I mean 20ft is pretty normal on the turnpike, leave much more than that and someone will cut in.
I mean 20ft is pretty normal on the turnpike, leave much more than that and someone will cut in.
@@filanfyretrackerI mean 20ft is pretty normal on the turnpike, leave much more than that and someone will cut in.
@@filanfyretrackerI mean 20ft is pretty normal on the turnpike, leave much more than that and someone will cut in
@@filanfyretrackerI mean 20ft is pretty normal on the turnpike, leave much more than that and someone will cut in
The Adam Savage Danger Chuckle always cheers me up
God, this takes me back..
It's both depressing, but reassuring, that in 10-20 years, I'll be looking back at this show with the same fondness that my parents looked back at the 60s-70s.
The original highway car driving up a ramp was in the 1969 film The Italian Job where three Minis (not one, three) were driven up ramps into the back of a bus.
If you are drafting a semi, any fuel you saved will be quickly offset by the roadkill he high centers and you smack into.
You mean straddle, not high center. Those are 2 very different things.
Don't forget all the rocks and road debris they pick up and bounce into the front end of the car following them. 😂
41:07 he totally hit that mirror😂
They did their best to hide it. Even skipping Jamie's turn
@@streamboxdvd838 41:56 You can see the jacked up, taped on mirror when Jamie backs down the ramp.
15:38 i love that cari is sometimes randomly holding puppies in the shop. what a wonderful job
I keep forgetting how 90s the 00s were... xD
I remember how 80s the early 90s were. I have a theory that it really takes until mid-decade for the style that a decade will be associated with to really be defined.
Couldn't agree more. I remember 2000-2003 being very 90's esque. Then when 2004 came things began to change. Some 90's hairstyles would hold on through 2005 like the curtains hairstyle which has made a comeback in recent years. I miss the 90's and the early 00's.
@@Tbolt1000TForLife yeah, to me, it was the best of times & the worst of times, but unequivocally better than these times. 😄
When Jamie went out backwards was sick hahaha
Recapped tires can be very very dangerous if they are over inflated or the truck is over weight. The tread which can weigh 100+lbs can peel off in 1-3 large pieces. Recap sheds can easily total a car at highway speed. Can't even imagine how much damage it could to to a human body but it would be ALOT.
I know that all or at least much of Europe has banned retreads because of their failure issues. The huge chunks of tire they leave on the road can be pretty dangerous as well even once they have finished off their kinetic adventure from the tire. Especially at night to motorcyclists but can also damage the undercarriage of cars.
I know a fella who did tire work on semi's. He repaired a punctured in the tread of a tire on a budd wheel. That tire had a small gouge in the side wall that didn't appear to be very deep at all. After the repair he put the tire in a cage and began airing it back up. He had approximately 30 pounds of pressure in the tire when that tire blew. When it blew he was knocked back against a wall about 7 feet behind him, his trousers were literally blown off him up to the crotch and he suffered a concussion. He did heal and was ok. In another instance, a guy was airing a tire on a Dayton 2 piece rim on the fuel island at a truck stop. He had the tire laying on the pavement and was bending over the tire to air it up. Suddenly the ring blew off the rim and decapitated the man. The ring was either worn out or was not seated properly...that's what the police report stated.
As a truck driver for decades Ive seen the real power of a truck tire failing catastrophically. It is literally like a bomb going off. It can blow fenders off of trucks, or shear off 1 inch steel.
Damn! That’s like a bomb
Truck driver Hoss here, I was running out of Columbus Ohio the other day and the Pepsi semi beside me blew off one of his rear tandems and luckily I was in my rig and swerved just enough to let the strip of tire go in between my steer tires and pass under me without hitting anything else other than the cars behind me
When I worked in a tire shop in college they sent me to a 3 day training course. They put a truck tire with a cracked rim under a 73 Chevy Impala. Inflated to just over spec pressure. When it blew it lifted the Impala a good 10 feet in the air.
I wish I could have met Grant. He seems like he was a kind genuine guy.
He was really nice,
Creepy
Truck tyres are dangerous. To get them to explode just run them below the proper pressure and at full weight,
I was following another truck and the bit of tyre took out the radiator on mine.
You were really lucky.
I was driving next to an 18 wheeler (big rig) when the rear tire exploded. It sounded like a bomb going off and debris was all over the place. Without a doubt if you were standing next to one of those tires when it exploded, it's not unreasonable that you'd be injured or worse. It was a terrifying experience
I have not watched the entire episode yet, but the one thing I think is missing from the blowing tire experiment is the weight from what the rig would be normally carrying.
Here's the thing about drafting a semi: don't.
After the tire thing I absolutely will not
I got a Firestone commercial during this episode.
That struck me as a bit funny. XD
As a truck driver I can confirm tire blow outs are no joke. Even not on the road but parked they are dangerous. A buddy of mine went to the hospital after his tire blew as he was inspecting it. Typically there is at least 100psi of air in that tire. I've seen them rip fenders off damage fuel tanks they are nasty. Which is why you don't want to hang out along side one. If you're passing keep going don't slow down.
To this day. I refuse to drive beside a big rig for any period of time bc of this very episode
i felt so much pain, when i heard that 85 ford start up and the rattle of a 6.9 idi graced my ears. i know you cant save them all, but a piece of me died.
Haha yea as a kid those kinds of thoughts never even occurred to me, but now that I own an old truck like that, it definitely doesn't feel right anymore
Amazing, here in SC a few years ago a couple on the interstate were killed on their motorcycle from a big rig tire blowing up. Truck driver never knew it blew til he stopped miles later and found out someone was killed later too
Im from South Carolina I remember that 😢 you remember the dumb and dangerous chutes that the semis were in and caused a catastrophy 😢
if you're old like me and remember slit-rim truck wheels you'd know that truck tires are way safer now then they were then, but they were way more dangerous for the person working on the wheel than for anyone else
Great ep. Got personal experience with two of the myths. Back in the ''80's I got the notion to try drafting a truck doing about 80 on I-80 in Wyoming. Closest I got was about a car length back but even there I was barely touching the throttle.
More recently, was stuck in stationary traffic in north Houston when the tire on a semi in the adjacent lane let go, with enough force that I thought someone had crashed into one of the other vehicles. Drivers up and down the line were getting out of their cars to look for damage.
If you are going to sit behind a truck that close, tell them.
I do slipstream, you have to be extremely careful and it does take a toll, you have to keep your concentration hard on the back of that truck. If they know you are there they will do things like put their foot on the brake lightly before braking so the brake lights come on before they start to stop.
Also, tell them when you are going and say thanks.
One of the biggest factors influencing the chance of blowouts is the weight of the trailer against the pavement. The heaviest loaded trucks tend to blowout tires the most often. It would have added some complexity to the experiment but maybe they could have progressively loaded more weight under different conditions and gotten a better blowout that way. I also believe that the rotation of the tire at highway speeds is a large part of the chance of blowouts and adds a lot of momentum behind the debris. Truck tires have serious potential for harm and people should minimize how much time they spend driving next to them whenever possible.
I think the tire shard would have gone through several Busters, holy cow. That was like a cannonball.
Had a guy pass away in my home city the other week after a truck tire exploded while he was at work
I saw that video.
Ive always been scared of being in the car near big rigs. Ive always been reluctant to be near a big truck but they have always fascinated me. Same way that huge animals fascinate me, kinda funny how that works in my brain
I knew a young man who was killed by an exploding tire. The tire was on a big forest machine and they were heating the lug nuts to get them loose, not real sure why the tire blew but possibly the heat accumulated enough to increase the pressure and maybe the tire had an unknown defect. I can't see the heat blowing a good tire, so that was my guess: the lug nuts are on the center of the wheel like most things, so not that much heat would have gotten into the tire. The locals nearby said it sounded like a bomb going off and unfortunately the young man was standing right alongside it. He didn't make it to hospital in the resultant ambulance, from what I recall.
Thing is, using a torch to heat stubborn nuts is something many of us have done. If I'd been trying to remove those wheels I would probably have done the same.
I have done the drafting behind rigs before back in the 90s when i was young and dumb lol I had a compact hatchback that would stay right behind the truck while in neutral and coasting and sometimes I even had to hit the breaks because of an actual vacuum action going on. You should do that experiment again and put the car in neutral when you get in that bubble about 8-10 behind the rig. Using a smaller lighter car would work better as well.
Back in the 70's or early 80's a school bus was on the freeway full of kids in orange county California and the retread shot through the wheel well and the seat grabbing a child, killing her. There is now a heavy metal plate to prevent that now. I'll never forget seeing that on the news.
God I miss coming home from school and seeing this show on and getting excited about what was coming up after the commercials
This is back from when we had more hair! I don’t know how I missed this ep, thanks!
I'd love to see this revisited with a re-threaded tire
Semi truck tires mostly rupture because they are under inflated and get very hot which destabilizes the sidewall and damages the belts. I’ve seen a tire blow from over pressure while it was in a cage which was made from 3” steel pipe. It destroyed that cage. It would definitely kill someone standing next to it and that was a tire that wasn’t spinning. Shooting a slug into it wasn’t ever going to do a thing. We puncture tires at speed all the time including sidewalls. They’re designed to not catastrophically fail when that happens and if it’s not a steer tire, they can often be repaired. That standard tire pressure of 115psi is a cold pressure and never on a standard trailer. You only see pressure that high on steer tires and certain super heavy duty specialty trailers. It rises to around 130+psi as the tire warms up. I have a monitoring system on my tires that measures temperature and the hottest I’ve ever seen one was 160°F on a 120° day in Baker California. The pressure on them got to 135# which is the highest I’ve seen. A little perspective on a high speed blowout. I hit a piece of banding strap on the road at 65mph the ripped the tire and blew it out. It was a steer which in this truck is actually maintained at 120psi cold. When it blew it took most of the fender on the truck with it as well as the headlight and some of the wiring on my firewall which is behind a fender shield when the hood is closed. Around $8000 in damage plus a new wheel and tire. Most of the force was linear from front to back instead of out the sidewall. That’s how the force travels in the vast majority of blowout. The real danger isn’t generally shrapnel from the tire. Especially in the case of steer blowouts it’s the possible loss of control that can occur. I prepared as soon as I knew I couldn’t avoid the thing and was textbook in my reaction and still moved to the side of the blowout two feet before I got total control. Most of the time, we don’t know or suspect something is about to happen until after it happens. It’s not uncommon to jerk over and entire lane or leave the road entirely in a blowout situation when it’s so sudden and unexpected. The smart money is just not hang out on the side of a truck at all if you can avoid it. As far as drafting goes, I see it all the time and it’s a miracle there aren’t more accidents. I’m all for saving fuel but you can’t spend that money you saved when you’re dead.
The day this episode aired, I came home from school to my mom franticly telling me to come help her move the storm drain cover in the backyard
There was a bunch of ducklings in the drain, we fished ‘em out one by one, put ‘em in a box filled with grass with some water
I remember having to miss the last chunk of this episode after the final commercial break, to go dig for worms in the old garden to feed the ducks
We took ‘em to a nature center a few days later
Was quite the experience
Lesson: When that tire blows, you better DUCK!
In The Italian Job with Michael Caine, 3 mini cars drove into a large bus.
Yeah, Italian Job version was a lot harder than Knight Rider. They had 2 ramps one for each side of the car, and had to stop the 3 cars one behind the other.
@@richardsellens6885 and their practice runs didn't show much promise.
Don't forget that each car boot was filled with gold bars... stopping one of those Mini's took some doing... bloody great film too!!! 🙂
Can confirm that following a big rig at 55mph from 50 feet is 100% safe if you're paying attention to what you're doing and not playing on your phone.
Keep telling yournelf that if you're lucky to wake up in a hospital.
I would bet you can stop faster than the truck can too.
@@LarryAllenTonar been driving for 16 years, have always drafted big rigs while traveling long distances and never had an issue. Physics is the key factor in that as the semi weighs substantially more than your average car on the road, which means it takes a lot longer for said truck to slow down than said car.
That drag... will suck a car into or under the DOT bumper
😂
"Look at that. That's Grant with a spine!" Oh sh--
Drafting does save fuel. In 1990, my dad and I were moving to GA. He was driving a GMC S-15 towing a trailer and I was driving a 1981 Ford Escort wagon, following him. When in Iowa we had driven over 100 miles and the gas gauge in my wagon had barely moved. We pulled into a gas station and I filled up so I could check the accuracy of the gauge. I figured out the mileage to over 40 miles per gallon, when I had been averaging around 30 miles per gallon before. i didn't realize that I was drafting at the time, I was just trying to avoid being separated while travelling.
The knight Rider stunt was taken from the old first gen arcade game SPYHUNTER. One thing they didn't take into account is that the ramp length that gets the car up is greater than the height of the trailer. It swings down from the trailer and when closed- it becomes the back gate. This ramp is too long to do this. And a shorter ramp would not accommodate the wheelbase of the camaro
i mean i know they’re all professionals who hire professionals but damn, that stunt driver is an amazing teacher. the intro into the stunt driving education being exposure therapy to spinning out is brilliant.
I've seen a show where 2 people stood up in the bed of a Pick Em Up at 50+m/h speeds and tossed a ball at least 1' back & forth[the ball was free of all 4 hands & 20 digits for most of the distance] and it went right to each person's hands, instead flying out behind them like I thought it would.
Following a big rig too close is a good way to get chips in your paint and windshield. Or a big crack in your windshield. 😂
31:40 See ya’ on the other side, Grant Danger Imahara.
I have driven semi's for 44yrs and yes when a tire blows it ain't no joke. The last time it happened was just before I retired the tread tore a stainless steel quarter fender off the truck I mean ripped it off. They didn't do the test right the trailer needs to be loaded to maximum gross weight not an empty one Hell on the Kenworth test track they test different weight trucks throughout the year..Ya might want to check it out
I used to follow big trucks on my motorcycle, like a meter behind the bumper. That low pressure zone feels crazy 😂
I used to cycle like a madman in the city all year around, even in the dead of winter. I used to draft behind city busses and it made it SO much easier on me. Plus, the heat from the back of the bus would warm me up too 😊
Many years ago in a 1970 Plymouth Swinger 6cly 225
My pal and I where going to his parents cottage , when we came up behind a truck .
So been young and broke I flashed the trucker I could see his face and I tucked in behind him tight and tried to stay 5 to 10 feet away it was easier than I thought , other than some good wind buffeting off the sides he sucked us down the road just fine . He would just flash his brakes lights to give me a sec to back off if he had to slow down . We followed him more than a half hour or better. When we got to our turn off I pulled back out flashed my lights gave him a honk , he turned off and on his lights and then gave a blast of his horn . And later I drank those extra beers in his memory he knew exactly what I did .
Any motorcyclist will tell the crazy amount of wind comming off the front of a semi especially an over cab truck when passing . You must lean into the unseen air blast , and the lighter the bike the greater the push .
Especially into a a good headwind and cross breeze going under a bridge just use the force Luke !
A trucker was trying to repair his tire near our local football field in the 1980s. He failed to attach the lockdown rim correctly before he reinflated the tire. The exploding tire splattered into a chain link fence killing him instantly.
I remember when this episode first aired. Jamie and Adam had to lock down the passenger side drive wheel of their puckup truck because they were concerned about getting an inconsistent launch speed for the tire tread. Since they locked down the passenger wheel, that caused the driver side drive wheel to spin at double the speed of the speedometer reading due to the properties of the open differential they used. At 45:16 you can clearly see the passenger drive wheel is not spinning while the drivers side wheel is spinning. So when they launched that piece of rubber at 40MPH it was actually launched at 80MPH.
I used tp tailgate trucks when I had a small MG sports car and it certainly meant that I could lift a lot of my foot pressure off the accelerator so I would have certainly been saving fuel. I don`t recall how close but I guess about 15 feet, silly boy!!!
I wonder if the drafting experiment would have been easier with modern smart cruise control tech...
Back in `73, I had a truck tire in front of me shed all outside rubber (¿defective retread?) at a "safe" distance. Huge tire chunks were still bouncing around, with no time to "dodge" the moving debris! I thought I might lose one of my tires or the oil pan, but was able to keep on driving.
The human brain takes about 3/10 of a second to react. This is so consistent that drag racing lights have this delay built in to yellow to green so you cannot cheat the light by guessing.
at one point when i was in really bad situation and had no money at all, i had to drive like 400km to get to my friend's place as i had nowhere else to stay, i did extreme close drafting as this was only way i was able to make it.
i was driving basically bumper to bumper and as it was automatic, i always brake with left foot, so i kept my left foot on the brake at all times just in case trucks decides to brake.
it saved me so much fuel, it was amazing. so in critical conditions it's totally worth the risk.
The ramp being wet probably made it a lot easier - the rear wheels (drive wheels on that Firebird) would spin, rather than accelerate the car, when they made the transition from the road surface. You can see it happening @ 41:20.
Too bad about the passenger-side mirror, though...
lol Jamie calling Adam "honky"
Love to see them test a split rim failure.
I experienced a rig blowing a tire while I was behind it on my motorcycle. I was not following it, it had just passed me and then changed lanes in front of me as the tire trailer blew and the complete tread came right at me. I had no time to react, and I heard "WHOOSH!" and the tread flipped end over end with the steel belts hanging out right past my left leg and shoulder. It would have killed me for sure.
I used to drive Ford van for living, shutter installs, I traveled all over the state, say 500km per day . Coming home on the highway I used to tailgate trucks at 100km per hour. Saved heaps of fuel, and I can always stop my van faster than 35 ton truck.
To answer the title, YES they absolutely CAN..
I still make sure to keep my head clear (of the potential blast zone) when inflating tires on my vehicles to this day because I've seen what an exploding tire can do to a person.
Without knowing the outcome here, I know for a fact pedestrians have been killed by the centercap of a big rig tire when it blew apart.
I LOVE THIS SHOW & ALL 5 OF IT'S TESTERS.
I just want to say to Jaime:
I love the line about getting the tire up to speed and induce a failure. There's pure insanity in picturing that.
Decreasing the air pressure increases the contact patch which generates more heat in the tire causing it to overinflate and fail wherever there’s an existing flaw
25:39 "I watched One Piece" - Jamie Hyneman, 2007
You dasterdly criminal, you fooled me!
In the late 1970s I was hitchhiking and got a ride with a guy who drafted a semi, I mean he was right up on it and the truck was going really fast too. That was a long time ago but the phrase "scared shitless" comes to mind, I was definitely glad to get out of that car.
I was beheaded by an exploding truck tire, now I cant even get in a car....
I miss watching this on tv I miss them Rip Grant😢
I've witnessed a passenger car run over an 18-wheeler's discarded tread, on the interstate, and it whip up from under the car slapping the passenger front door and cut a gash in the steel, over a foot long, and inch wide in the middle! Those things are no joke! 👍
What they're missing on testing a blowout is the other tire and weight. They are correct that it's usually under inflated tires that blow, but the other tire is properly inflated and therefore slightly larger in diameter. The under inflated tires needs to spin faster but can't. After miles of scrubbing since it can't turn fast enough it builds heat in the tread and belts eventually causing the catastrophic failure they're looking for.
Grants heart must have been pounding at 2’! 😮 You are missed!!!
They call them 'widowmaker rings' for a reason. You need to put Buster in front of one of those rings when it comes off.
I used to go to this taco truck, parked across the street from a gas station in east LA. One night, the truck wasn't in its regular spot. It was parked 100 yards down the road. I asked why they moved. "We couldn't park there, because of a death investigation". I learned later that a guy, working the tire machine in the gas station, had his head blown through the roof, as he was trying to weld a cracked rim. His head went through the roof, and landed across the street, fifty yards away. They ended up firing him.
I've seen enough gators on the highway that a new fear has been unlocked. Also, if the rubber is launched backwards at 40mph while you're driving towards it at 55mph you stand even less of a chance.
I was driving right next to an 18-wheeler when a tire exploded. It shook the whole car, and rubber went flying everywhere. We were going about 45mph. I was thankful that no windows were broken. It definitely felt like enough force to kill someone.
My best friend was killed servicing a piece of farm equipment. He was filling the tire with air on a split rim. The rim separated explosively and crushed Shane’s skull. The only good news was he died instantly. They said he didn’t suffer. But he was in that field for over an hour, by himself until the worker returned and found him. This was in 1989 and no cell phones. The farm only communicated by CB radio and it took time for the Mercy Flight to respond. As bad as it devastated me, I can’t imagine how that farm hand felt. Shane had a working relationship with many of the farmers and ranchers since he serviced heavy equipment.
Back in the late 70s, I worked at a full service station.
Our boss absolutely forbid us from working on any split rims. He described what had happened to an employee at another service station. I took it to heart and decided the voice of experience should take precedence over a need for profit or ego.
Very sorry to hear about your friend.
The trailer sat lower in the T.V. show . I think they used a low boy trailer like NASCAR racing team uses you can load and unload cars ez
We were coming home in a Pontiac Grand Prix when a semi beside us blew a tire. It threw tire shrapnel all over, but caused no damage. Scared the crap out of the wife and kids though!😂