Road Debris
 

BRZ + truck tire (tread) + 50 MPH = not good!!:mad0260:

Ugh, that pisses me off so much! I commute 30 minutes to work and I come across at least 3 large pieces of tire debris every day. I'm always worried this happening to me.

Sorry bro

yeah I agree, The car in front of me hit it just right and it landed right in my path, I had no time to react, Sucks!

Thankfully it only appears to be the bumper cover and some Under carriage plastic

Man, I had this same thing happen to me when my Tiburon was 6 months new. Car hit it and it bounced erratically like a football right into my bumper at the last second. It looked just like yours now but with an obliterated fog light too.

Hope the repair goes well!

Ouch!! This is one of my fears.

In case you didn't know; if the tire is laying in the road and you hit it, it's a collision loss and your collision deductible is applied. If it is moving (a missile) and hits your car, it is considered a comprehensive loss and most of us carry a smaller deductible under comprehensive. In addition to that I've never known of a comprehensive claim to have any impact on your rates. If in doubt, check with your agent.

...Unfortunately, I think he's right...

Off topic but a quick question. A school bus making a turn bumped my rear bumper and left some scratches and paint transfer. Being it was a school bus there was a police report. I never intended to make a claim but my insurance called a few weeks later somehow they knew about it. So I told them what happened and I didn't want to make a claim or anything that's why I didn't report it. They said I have to report ALL accidents.

So say I had another accident or something would this one factor into insurance premium increase or anything like that.

This goes back to what I preach on a soap box constantly... Companies should legally have to have identifiers on their truck tires (more so for those retreads) so that if crap like this happens they are legally liable and also hit up for littering. I wonder how much of our tax dollars go towards picking up this crap every year, let alone the damage related to it! They need to clean this crap up... Not the front end of our vehicles.

Also, sorry OP... I have small knicks in my own car from small pieces being picked up and tossed into the front of the car but have been blessed to avoid the big pieces like you hit. Hope you're able to get it repaired without much $$$ and time lost.

Keep in mind I've been retired from being in insurance claims since 1989 so I can't say that things haven't changed since then but it was written in the policy that all accidents must be reported to your insurance company. The reason is quite simple. The average person driving a car doesn't know the difference between civil and criminal law. They might be involved in an accident and (this is hypothetical) the police might say that the other person is at fault. From a civil law (insurance) point of view that might not be true. There's a good chance your company could be facing a liability claim and not be aware of it because you failed to report it. They want to know of any and all events that happen so they can eliminate any chances of being caught off guard. I'll give a good example. You're at an open residential intersection and a car coming from your left hits your car. The police are called and write the report saying the other guy failed to yield the right-of-way. In fact, they give the guy a ticket. You might then think you're in the clear but that's possibly not so. It's all a matter of negligence and some would say if the car on the left had the opportunity to see you and didn't, what was your excuse for not seeing him and preventing the accident. It would be a big factor if his passenger was seriously injured. It would be assumed that his passenger was free of negligence and if that passenger could place any negligence on you, you (your company) would be at least partially liable to that passenger as would his driver. It can get very sticky.

State troopers try to prevent these type of accidents by stopping trucks that have safety issues such as overloading, cargo not secured, etc, but it is an impossible task to check them all. Hopefully much of this is done at weight checks on the interstates. I am always happy when I see a tractor trailer pulled over and a trooper is checking them out.

I don't disagree with you on your suggestion for tire "identifiers" but we now have so much regulation it becomes insanity. For me, I keep a very safe distance from the vehicle in front of me especially if it is a big SUV or van and if it is a semi (tractor-trailer) even greater caution and passing the semi at the first opportunity is paramount. I would love to follow an FRS/BRZ since I can generally see ahead of them as well. AND if they are going fast, even better, they will be my "point man" keeping me out of danger. These types of driving techniques have helped me immensely having put over 400,000 miles on motorbikes over the years without any road mishaps.

For all of you insurance agents maybe the insurance companies you represent should spend some time and do some policing yourselves: Like making random checks on trucks individually or at weight stations.

Yeah, that all sounds good but the transport industry themselves need to take responsibilty for this. The amount of "gator tails" on the roads, and the side of the road is out of hand. I was always in shock when I came back to the US when I lived in Europe. The 2 hour drive home from ATL was nearly always completely lined with tire scraps. Not only are they dangerous, but they're upright litter. I can understand a blow out every now and then, but the amount this happens is out of hand.

I was driving cross country and was near a tractor trailer. Heard one of his tires blow out. I quickly passed him and honked him a bunch of times but he had no idea. Hope he pulled over before it shredded in front of someone, but I doubt it.

A big part of the problem is the law. When you see these 'gators' on and along side the road they're most likely retreads and they're legal on commercial vehicles. I forget exactly how the law works but there are restrictions on which tires on the rig can be retreads and which ones can't be retreads. It would be hard to fault the original tire manufacturer if a rig was driving legally with retreads.

Same thing damn near happened to me this morning. I think I ran over it, but I didn't check.

I have done 911 calls from time to time on some of these things (drunk driving, weaving, back doors swinging open on trailers, etc.)

What is impressive about the FRS/BRZ is that if one is following at a 'safe distance' (by my definition depending upon circumstances) one can quickly avoid the debris. It takes skill and alertness but even this is no guarantee.

Sorry bro.. Can't count how many times I've had to dodge that sort of crap on the road. Hope it gets fixed!

You should also have the underside of the car checked out too... The wires in the radials can cut hoses and other rubber lines.

I thought I was at a safe distance and tried to avoid it. What made it more difficult was the fact that the guy in front of me hit it too which turned it into a "knuckle ball."

Sorry to hear about your accident, man :cry: hopefully insurance will handle everything.

I fucking hate Tim Wakefield !!!

You are correct. Just got off the phone with my insurance. It will be covered under comprehensive and will be "not at fault" so it shouldn't have an effect on my rate.

Every trip on the interstate I have come across these retreads all over the road. I'm surprised they are legal since they are such a hazard to drivers

Same thing happened to my brother a couple weeks ago. Good luck man.

Whatever happened to Citizen's band (CB) radio. - "Hey mothertrucker heading west on I-80, mile marker 226, you just blew ------------ a tire".

Don't have on, never used one. Have a link to a cheap easy to use one?

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tru...-radio-11.html

After a week of shipping delays my BRZ is finally done and ready to be picked up.

Apparently there aren't a lot of BRZ front bumper covers laying around Subaru warehouses haha.

People still use agents???!:confused0068:

like a good neighbor... sorry couldn't help myself :scared0016:

Glad you're okay!

No Taevo?

The problem is many trucking companies use tired that have been re-treaded 2, 3, or 4 times. Retread once and it's likely fine. Many trucking companies (like Roadway, for example), won't use tires if they've been retreaded more than once, they just sell them for sale to other trucking companies. I assume it's for liability/on-time delivery rates.

I heard on the radio recently, the WA state police have been cracking down on truck drivers because the number of blatantly unsafe trailers is getting out of hand and causing massive traffic delays on some of the already worst freeways in the nation.

I had this happen to my SRT-4 driving from TX to CA, only the truck pitched the tread right in front of me, it bounced while rolling at me erratically, and I was boxed in. My mistake was getting out to check the damage instead of staying on his tail and calling the cops, and I ended up just sticking with that bumper until someone destroyed it while I was parked.

Any tire except the front two steering tires can be retreads. (I have a CDL Class A)

Truck tires are crazy expensive new which is why retreads are so prevalent. Think $400+ dollars PER tire...and you have 18 of them. It can cost $8 to 10 grand to equip a semi with all new tires. I do agree however there should be a ONE retread limit.