How many here have come close to running over or actually hit a peeled off tread from re-capped truck tires on the highway? Not only is it dangerous, but someone who is riding a motorcycle at night could actually get killed!. In my neck of the woods the Interstate is constantly cluttered with them and while it is less disastrous when in a car or SUV, I almost hit one on my m/c last week! Scared the hell out of me!

Even if someone hits one and does not crash, it could cause much damage to your vehicle too. I am very angry and surprised that the DOT STILL allows them to be used. Apparently they have NOT improved them much over the years since I see more now than ever before. They will give Truckers tickets for broken mirrors, under inflated tires, missing safety triangles, etc. but they don't seem to see the danger of trucks spewing re-treaded tires all over the road.

I know truck tires are not cheap, but the re-tread alternatives should be illegal as far as I am concerned. They are just way too dangerous. I know some where will chime in and say they have used them for years and never had problems, but if they, their wife or kids either hit one or came close to doing so, they might feel very different!

I had a 130 mile commute to work each day about half that was on 95, I couldn't tell you how many I saw on the road, I also had many blow when I was behind them and pieces were flying all over.

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Don

Be careful what you wish for...they may just end up banning our motorcycles from the Interstate instead rather than addressing the real problem!

I agree!
I had pieces of one smash my windshield and rip my drivers side mirror off.

A trucker I know convinced me those aren't from re-capped tires but from "virgin" tires so to speak... A friend did asbestos abatement at a major tire manufacturer's plant in a near by state... their inspection list was so tough that they failed over 20% of the tires they made if I'm remembering right... & when they fail so drastically on the highway as the ones you speak of... they replace them. The huge tires on those monster sized quarry trucks, front end loaders were often leased he said in stead of purchase. Hope someone with better memory & newer info pitches in on this.. Skip & I talked about this back in the early 2000's...

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be safe,enjoylife,journey well

Just keep in mind if the government regulates and bans everything that is dangerous where would we be with our guns and motorcycles.........I know I know public safety and all that stuff regarding the tires and all but the same can be said for motorcycles that if we all were in cars we would be safer........I would prefer the government crack down on all these cars that have busted lights and windshields with duct tape or electric wire holding things to the car and we are supposed to believe that those cars carry insurance and actually passed a state inspection......too many other things that need regulating or at least enforcement as far as I am concerned.......

Been driving since 97. Can't remember seeing one on the road. Occasionally a piece on the shoulder. No more dangerous then rocks or other debris on the highway. As someone who has ridden motorcycles I can say that other drivers are far far far far far far more dangerous then any piece of tire

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Not disagreeing with you OP but "Caps" in the 60s-early 70 were much more of a problem. I worked PT at a couple different garages and a lot of people wanted "caps" because they were so cheap then. Laws got much stricter and things did get better!

I went from NY state to either Hershey or Carlisle PA about twice a year for 20 years (car shows) and have a lot of experience driving interstate 81 and the amount of gators/alligators/crocodiles you saw on the road or pulled off into the median or side of the road was very large. It appeared that PENNDOT did not work on weekends. Just for the heck of it the amount of dear carcasses on the side of the road were great. Go down Friday night their there, go home Sunday late PM or early evening still there!

You learned to watch the road ahead real close as driving a low slung Vette the amount of damage done could be quite extensive!

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

One of the biggest reasons recaps fail is under inflation, Heat builds up and softens the adhesive and the Tire tread lets go.
That's the reason it's against the law to put recaps on the steering axle. Also the prep work may have been shoddy at the recappers or the casing may have been bad.
They are a problem and can and do kill People so maybe They should only be allowed on roads with speed limits under 55mph.

I've had many original tread tire come apart especially trailer tires that sit in the sun and bake also a lot of cheap overseas tires coming into our country are far less durable then our usa recap tires
Another factor in tires is running low air pressure and by far this is the greatest cause of tires coming apart... There is a psi on the side wall of all tires that each tire should be inflated to
Too many people deflat tires to lower pressure for better ride this is a no no ask any tire manufacturer
If you can't see a tire laying in the road and are unable to avoid it maybe your the problem not the tire your not driving safety

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Going 70mph in the interstate and a car ahead of me had a tire come apart. I was on my scooter and it missed me by about 1' or less.

My wife had the same experience in her car but it caught her just right to rub black rubber all down the drivers side. Didn't dent the metal but it took be over a week working on it every day to get all the rubber off.

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Real men love cats!

In AZ during the summer the interstates are littered with them. I'd say the only thing worse than hitting one would be having to put a new one on a truck/trailer rig.

Driving at night in a car with minimal ground clearance is an accident waiting to happen. Some of these treads can be 3-4 feet long and are usually laying in the road in a curl. I hit one in my Honda Civic that caused a lot of front end damage, took out the catalytic converter, and scared the heck out of me.

I drove a tanker for 32 years, and I have seen many blowouts, and had a few myself. It’s not only recaps that fail, but original tread tires as well. Most fail because tire pressures are not matched between the dual tires on the same axle, so one tire is carrying an excessive load that’s over its rated capability. Using a recap tire exacerbates the problem, especially in the heat of the summer when tread separations are more common.

Most major trucking companies today tend to stay away from recaps because the down time it causes isn’t worth the cost of a cheap tire. The new “Super Single” tires are becoming more common because one tire replaces the dual tires, but they can be extremely dangerous. They are inflated to 120psi or more and when they let go it’s like a bomb going off. I witnessed a Super Single on a trailer blow out next to a car on the freeway and it caved in the rear door, broke the side window, and about gave the driver a heart attack! It also tore off the rear light bar, mud flaps, and other metal from the trailer that barely missed my truck.

I always give my wife this advice when driving at high speed on the freeway. Never ride next to any truck, pass as quickly as possible, never follow closer than at least 100 feet, and if the truck you are following makes an abrupt lane change follow right behind it.

Same here in Nevada and on the way to SoCal due to the dry heat. There are so many gators in and next to the road you would think you were in Florida.

Certain car tyres don't do well here, either. I know of one local shop that will only fit Michelin PSS2s under protest and a written waiver. They got sick of folk in expensive cars coming back after three months complaining that the tyres had turned into hockey pucks.

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Release the Kraken

That's good advice that you gave your wife, one time coming home from work I was in heavy traffic and I had one of those big dump trucks beside me and the recap let go, I heard it slapping the underside of the truck then the whole thing let go, not one piece hit me but it scared the living &*%# out of me, after that I gave them a wide birth.

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Don

Being a motorcycle rider I always give big trucks and travel trailers a larger than normal margin and pass them as soon as possible even dump trucks are risky driving behind or along side of due to spillage
If you want to ban recap tires that would only be the start of banning everything that mite be a problem just take responsibility for how you drive around big trucks camper trailers and at night don't overdrive your headlights

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Yeah it can be a real shock when one lets go close to you. Can get your attention when it's the truck you're driving too. Back in the 90's I was driving a 24 foot box truck on I-55 just north of Memphis when I had the left outer blow. There was a sedan just passing me and almost even with the tire when it went. I was looking at him in the mirror when it happened and he jerked left into the median (shallow and grassy, luckily), as I slowed down he passed me, still in the grass, before coming back onto the highway and zooming off down the road like his tail was on fire. Must of scared the **** out of him!

The one that scared me the most was a front tire that pealed and about beat the fender to pieces before I could get it off the road and stopped. Strangely it was still holding air, just lost all the tread. It was supposed to be a factory new tire too, not a recap.

I do not doubt what you are saying, but then the FACT MUST BE that obviously Trucker's let their tire pressure fall too low and the end result produces a very dangerous situation and that is NOT only for Motorcyclists. Since we KNOW that will never change, we need to get the DOT to BAN Retreads!

Maybe we should call them ASSAULT TIRES to get them banned!

DOT regulations state that tires must be checked every 100 miles, or 2 hours, whichever is less. Almost all drivers use a thumper stick to hit the tires and listen for a nice solid sound. A low tire is easy to detect, but you have no idea of what the pressure is inside the tire. Using a tire pressure gauge on 18 tires is a slow, dirty, time consuming process. Frankly, I seldom used one and neither did the other drivers in the company. There are pressure monitoring systems for heavy trucks, but I have never seen or used one.

The other issue is tire quality. Most truck tires these days are imported, just like car tires. Used tires are also exported to foreign countries to be recapped, with no government oversight, and then imported back into the U.S.A.

Unless you want the milk, bread and beer prices going up even more, it's an unfortunate fact of life. Transportation add a lot to the cost of food, and fresh tires each time one blows is going to jack that cost up even higher than what it already is now at the current time presently.

When I was working the road as a trooper back in the 1980's, seen quite a few cars and trucks damaged by separated treads on re-caps. A few serious injuries as well. Its easy to say "drive defensively and pay attention", but that don't always work....

You would think better tire technology, along with more stringent DOT inspections would make a big difference, but I still see a lot of tread carcass's along the highways here in the NE.

My HS car was a 1965 GTO. Every winter, I would take off my "good" rear tires, and put on a set of cheap re-cap studded snow tires. Come spring, I would do a good burn out, and launch all the studs like shrapnel. A little more tire spinning, and the tires would pop, or blow off the tread. Put the "good" tires back on, and was all set for another year. In those days (1970's), anyway, real tires were a lot more durable. Took a lot more "horsing around" to blow one, as compared to a re-cap.

Larry

...when you have dual tires...and one goes flat or is seriously under inflated...the other tire next to it is then 100% overloaded...and will get hot and eventually blow...whether it is a recap or not...I'm the dreaded person the OP mentioned that used recaps on my Kenworth dump truck for 26 years...never ran my tires under inflated...and never lost a cap...never blew a capped tire...never blew a new tire...because I kept them inflated...

...scroll down in the link below to the bottom...Retread Myths...

Retread Tires Save Time and Money - Learn How Here

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A Country Boy Can Survive

Some 30+ years ago, I was engineering manager for a large fleet of oil field service trucks, mainly 18-wheelers and heavily loaded with pumping equipment. At least at that time, tires were designed to have the treads re-cut once, then after that wore down, the tire bodies re-treaded. We had a company in, as I remember, the Dallas area which did all our retreading and they were very good about inspecting and rejecting tire bodies which were suspect before retreading. We never had any problems with treads coming off, but we had very strict requirements about our drivers inspecting their vehicles before leaving for every job, including maintaining proper tire pressures and inspecting tire condition. These were not long-distance runs, typically 100-200 miles per job or less, so the tires got inspected almost daily.

Recapped tires are not allowed on the front of heavy vehicles, at least on buses for sure because of the safety aspect due to delamination.

If your freaked out over recaps or muffler's, or tiny animals on the road, don't drive.
It's as simple as that.
Why use the anti-gunners slogans of "it's for the kids or the safety of my family" to push self centered agendas.
Keep the government out of over regulating every thing.

Couldn't resist:

Here's A Graphic Reminder Of How Scary It Is To Hit A Moose While Driving - BuzzFeed News

My neighbor hit a coyote at night and it caused over $3000 in damage to the front of his car.

Road gator see them every day on the highway. Had one come off the trailer of the rig in front on me. Makes for some quick moves if your to close.

...if you see wire in the gator...it's not a cap...it's a casing failure virtually always caused by under inflation...

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A Country Boy Can Survive

Don't tailgate. Defensive driving. Not regulations.
Big brother is not answer.

8 years ago, interstate 81 in Virginia, 3 lanes wide, wife and I in the fast lane on a Honda Goldwing at 70 mph. Several cars in front of me with 5+ car lengths spacing, tractor trailer up ahead of them in center lane. Has the entire cap come off a tire. We do not see this. It eventually pops out from under the car in front of us and hits my front wheel at about the 4 o'clock position goes under the bike and pops the rear end of the bike up in the air about a good 18"!!! I saved it and kept it up and immediately pulled off on the shoulder. There were wide black marks on both sides of the bike like it wrapped it before the rear tire strike. The miracle here was the fact it struck the front wheel below the 3 o'clock position. Any higher and we would both be dead. That recap pushes 40+ lbs. Neither tire was flat from this. We moved ourselves up onto the bank and sat down and cried and mostly prayed. I now keep 10 car lengths away or more. God was with us on that day my friends.

After a near-terminal event during my late teens, I always felt too vulnerable to ever ride a motorcycle again. And I never did.

Speaking as a professional driver I would be ok with a retread ban, it really wouldn't change anything I do, one way or the other.
Speaking as a consumer, do I want to pay $.05 more for a gallon of milk or a pair of shoes because of a rise in transportation cost?
16 virgin tires a couple times per year, disposal fees for old carcasses, The cost of operating one truck and trailer just went up $3000-$4000 per year. A large trucking company with 16000 units, do the math.

I would think its likely if something flies off my car and causes an accident i would be held liable or given a ticket.

I would hope trucks would be held to the same standard as I am.

If i had a nickle for every ladder i have come across on I 95 I could go on vacation.

They are...

...when I was in the business...you could have four casings capped for the cost of a new tire...I had casings that lasted through two or three caps...a lot of money involved for a small business man...at that time it was a little over $100 for a cap...a little over $400 for a new tire...I bought new tires for the steering axle...when the fronts wore out...had them capped and moved them to the back...

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A Country Boy Can Survive

Most blowouts are NOT caused by recaps.
That is a misconception. Recap technology has come a LONG way and the quality isn't really an issue if done correctly.
There are a few cases where a cap will peel due to poor adhesion but in my experience it's rare.
There is a rigorous inspection for a tire casing before it is considered for recapping, up to and including an x-ray.

The vast majority of tire blowouts are caused by tires being run with low air pressure. The tire heats up and the tread starts to separate.
Virgin tires will do this the exact same way recaps will.
All it takes is for the tire to pick up a piece of road debris and cause a slow leak - nail, screw, bolt, etc.
You'd be amazed at the things I've found in truck tires in the past 19 1/2 years.
The driver likely won't know it that the tire is low until it blows out.

That's one reason that it's so important for drivers to inspect their rigs before they take off.

You are a VERY funny man.

I tend to agree that underinflation is the most likely cause for most tyre failures. I judge this from the abuse of tyres dealt out by most of my coworkers.

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Release the Kraken

A related topic, there is a bill introduced in Fl that will ban using plugs in passenger tires! They can be plugged but also have to be patched from the inside! I'm just say'n,
SEMPER PARATUS

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NRA Life Member
CPO

Thank NAFTA for all the Mexican trucks on the road.

And how do they propose to enforce that? A state Plug Police, or Tire Troopers?

Regarding economics, back at the time when I had something to do with truck tires, I remember that our retreads cost the company less than half the price of new tires (which we got at OEM prices, as we made up lots of our own trailers, and also had a cozy deal with a tire distributor). For 16 tires per truck, that was quite a reduction in operating expense, even back then.

I had a truck throw chunks of tire in from of me. There was another car in front of me. The other car hit the chunks and threw them in to the front of my corvette. We were on I 70 in Kansas traveling at 75 mph.
There was quite a bit of damage to my car.
I don't know if it was a recap or not.

That is the proper way to repair any tire you put a plug in then a patch on the inside then you need to reseal the air barrier
The thin inside air barrier is what keeps the tire inflated not the rubber the tire is made from that's why just plugging a tire isn't fixing a thing because the air barrier wasn't restored
Pappy

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Having plugged a fair number of tubeless tires over the years, I don't remember having any problems keeping air in them. Maybe I was lucky. I have also had tires patched on the inside. The difference is that I had to take the tire and wheel to a tire shop for a patch, but I could plug my flat tires myself. But no argument that inside tire patches are better. I'm so old I even remember tires which required tubes. I patched a lot of those too. Remember those vulcanizing patches with the metal cup you clamped over the puncture in the inner tube and set it on fire?

I cannot speak to tractor/trailer tire but this statement as applied to passenger car and light truck tire is false. The pressure listed on the sidewall is the maximum rated inflation level which will allow the tire to support the maximum rated load. Tire pressures are not reduced from this number just to allow for a more comfortable ride. Changing the inflation pressure changes the tire's footprint, the amount of flex in the sidewall, etc.. In essence, it changes the handling characteristics of the vehicle it is mounted on. Additionally, over inflating the tire with regard to the load it is supporting causes the tire to wear prematurely in the center of the tread. Conversely, under inflating the tire with respect to the load will cause the tire to wear on the outside edges of the tread. To paraphrase a portion of the quote, please do ask the dealer or manufacturer.

There are those who will argue that pumping up the tires to the maximum rated pressure will increase fuel economy. This is true in most cases BUT the increase is minimal and the price for this includes premature tire wear and very poor to unsafe handling characteristics-especially emergency braking distances ( due to the extremely small tire footprint).

Bruce

I was in east Michigan a few years ago when they had the highway closed because a truck tire blew and killed a motorcycle rider that was next to it. Don't ride next to a truck on a motorcycle.
As for low clearance vehicles I ran over a possum with my Vette one time about 100 miles from home. It stayed under the car until I got to my hometown and drove across the railroad tracks.

The Jeep ate a super-single a year or so ago, to the tune of close to 4Gs.

There is ZERO reason that tire-pressure monitoring cannot be implemented on big rigs besides inertia and laziness. Retreads are not the problem, so much as using a stick to check tires is.

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- Post No Bills -

My understanding if it hits your car while it is in the air, the truck(er) is responsible. Once it hits the road and you hit it, it's considered debris and that repair is on you.

I lived in Germany for 7 years and drove the Autobahn every day. I was traveling once between Munich and Heidelberg doing about 90MPH when I came up to a truck and moved over to the left lane to make a pass. Just as I came up even with the back of the truck a tire tread came off. I missed getting killed by seconds. I agree that something should be done to avoid this hazard.

Wait a minute...Did someone back there say truck tires are required to be inspected every ONE HUNDRED miles? Was that a typo? I doubt many do if that's the case.

A fellow in my old bass club was coming home from a South Carolina golfing vacation a few years ago when he hit a road gator on I-95. Totaled out his Porsche 911.

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John 3:16 .

It's a DOT reg and must be logged in the driver's log book. Tire checks also can serve as a rest stop, especially if too much coffee was consumed at the last greasy spoon. Don't know about the guy in the other truck, but I was very diligent about tire checks.