Quote Originally Posted by Spd 135 View Post
Wow! I am glad everyone is ok. "Minor Hijack" I am one of the instructors that teaches NAPD (Nat'l Assn. of Professional Driving) Police Pursuit Driving and TVI (Tactical Vehicle Intervention / PIT manuever) for our academy and department. We have noticed, and now teach that daddy was wrong. We have alway made sure our best tires are on the front. We should actually make sure they are on the rear. We have spiked cars and watched them drive miles and in excess of 70 mph with the front tires blown and even down to grinding the hub to nothing. We can control a vehicle with front tire loss because of steering. When a rear tire goes we have no control and it can be deadly. Here is a link that shows how "old" tires are being sold and are not safe. Notice that the vehicles that had catastrophic crashes had rear tires that blew.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897

Hijack over. Mark

I used to work in the trucking industry (well over a decade ago, so it may have changed...) and we shipped HazMat and Munitions; things that go Big Boom and leave a crater and take all evidence of the truck an the 4 escort vehicles... Things like the solid rocket bosters for the Space Shuttle.

One of the DOT requirements was no retreads, but only on the steering axle. I had to have all mfr. dates written down, but I don't recall any limits or even reccomendations.

Watching that video was an eye opener, although I am not surprised. I've had tread seperate on more than one occasion (cars and trucks), but I can only imagine if it happened during a lane change or on a high speed off ramp etc.

I'm quite glad everyone got out of this unscathed; this could have been such a different thread.