BLOWN TYRES:

The thought of having a blown tyre while driving, at speed, does occur occasionally at the back of our minds.

It is actually a fear reaction coming from our inexperience or our fantasy thoughts.

The thoughts of how to ever react to such situation if faced with one does bother all of us.

Allow me to share my experience in tackling this problem.

Let's get to the facts, blown tyres do happen but in normal circumstances, it rarely happens because of the highly technical built and quality construction of the tyres. (Nothing related to Firestone in US or 4 WD)

If it does happen it could be due to over inflation or under inflation and probably due to an impact. Mostly what we will experience is loss of air at a very fast rate or at a very gradual rate.

There would be signs of handling peculiarities to indicate to you on the type of action you would need to take.

Let's examine each peculiarity for different kind of car set-up for front or rear wheel drive.

In most circumstances, whether it is for front or rear wheel driven cars, a lost of air at the front would immediately provide a heavier handling of the steering wheel and there would be a tendency to pull to the direction where the "puncture" is. If such handling feeling is allowed to continue without stopping, then the tyre would get heated up and if a corner is tackled with the tyre that is loosing air, you may experience a drastic understeer. The car would not want to turn and the steering would get very heavy.

At worst scenario, you may loose that tyre or it would come out from its sitting at the rims.

While if the loss of air is at the rear, the feeling may not be that pronounced but you would probably feel a sense of "float" with a swaying motion. If the car is not heavily loaded this feeling would be very slight.

The worst scenario would be a gradual loss where the feeling goes unnoticed or felt and while tackling any sharp bend the car would want to go to oversteer.

The danger is in oversteer, as many would react with a lift off of the accelerator and probably would want to brake, this will send the car to an immediate spin.

The rear wheel driven cars, with loss of air at the rear would immediately be felt as the car would sit back and it would have a tendency to go the opposite direction of the "puncture".

During a puncture the car would not immediately loose control, as such, there is enough time for all drivers to react by giving signal (left) to others that you are facing a problem and that you intend to go to the left (even if your puncture is on the right).

A puncture must always be looked into immediately by stopping as far left as possible from the direction of the traffic flow and while stopping - the hazard lights must be switched and the safety triangle placed 30 meters behind your car.

Many accidents have happened on emergency lanes, as such hazards are not immediately communicated.


the above article was contributed by
Simon Ong,
Instructor for SAMP Advance & Defensive Driving School