A friend of mine was in a freak accident recently. He was riding through a gentle left corner when an oncoming car's left front wheel came off. The wheel rolled right at him and hit his front wheel behind the fork. He had no time to react. His bike went down instantly and he was launched in the air at 50mph. He ended up with a broken wrist, bumps and bruises, but otherwise ok. He was wearing full gear, but was also very lucky. His bike was totalled. Now he's facing the mental battle of can he ever get on a bike again. The car's wheel and lug bolts were pretty worn, so it's likely there was some warning that something was amis that the car's driver ignored. After I heard this, I went home and checked the lug nuts on my cars just to be sure.
WTF!
thats a bummer. glad he came out more or less ok
Scary stuff, nothing he could have done. :o
Thanks for the heads up, send your friend some get-better wishes from me.
DAMN! Hope your friend heals well and quick.
Glad it wasn't more serious and that he's OK.
I'm sure everyone realizes that there is a whole bunch of cagers out there that don't even realize what a lug nut is, some people strictly use their vehicle to get from point A to B and until a wheel falls off they have no idea something was wrong.
Keep on your toes, watch out for EVERYONE! (some 2 wheelers are clueless too)
Hope he can get his head around it and enjoy 2 wheels again soon!!
wow. thats some serious shit on the drivers behalf. Hope all is well with your friend man.
holy damn! :o
For those of you who haven't done it, it's very easy to lose all of your lugnuts if they aren't tightened. IE, go to shop, shop forgets to do it, don't get very far, lose tire.
I wouldn't necessarily hang the cager out on this.
Quote from: someguy on August 19, 2008, 08:06:03 PM
For those of you who haven't done it, it's very easy to lose all of your lugnuts if they aren't tightened. IE, go to shop, shop forgets to do it, don't get very far, lose tire.
I wouldn't necessarily hang the cager out on this.
Hmm. i guess your right, if you depend on a dealer, then get the dealer for it.
Last time this kinda of happened to me, Except the whole front axle of a BMW X5 came of and both wheels were rolling on the highway. Hit the wheel at 90mph. (this was in a car)
Heck, took me all of three blocks to lose the ones on my '61 Chrysler. Friggin' idiot mechanic (me).
Learned after that!
Quote from: someguy on August 19, 2008, 08:06:03 PM
I wouldn't necessarily hang the cager out on this.
Not saying it's their fault, some people have no idea, not everyone who drives a car is infinately knowledgeable on the mechanical workings.
I'm just saying you have to keep your eyes open for everything
Wow...what are the odds ? I'm glad to hear that there was nothing more serious than a broken wrist. Bummer about the bike. Hope the cager's Insurance buys a new one .
It's bad enough looking out for all the things that run across the road like Deer , now rolling wheels ! Next it will be things falling out of the sky . Walnuts are getting pretty ripe around here and alot of Walnut trees over hanging the roads. What next ? Dolph
Man! I'm not what I'd call a fatalist, but that sorta sounds like "when your number's up, it's up".
LA
Quote from: someguy on August 19, 2008, 08:06:03 PM
For those of you who haven't done it, it's very easy to lose all of your lugnuts if they aren't tightened. IE, go to shop, shop forgets to do it, don't get very far, lose tire.
I wouldn't necessarily hang the cager out on this.
unless he was on his way from the shop I would.
Quote from: He Man on August 19, 2008, 08:57:54 PM
Last time this kinda of happened to me, Except the whole front axle of a BMW X5 came of and both wheels were rolling on the highway. Hit the wheel at 90mph. (this was in a car)
It's possible that one or two wheels came off. Extremely unlikely that two wheels came off. There is absolutely no way the whole front axle of a X5 came off and sent two wheels down the road unless it was a Hollywood rigged stunt. I have seen techs leave wheel lugs loose though. Totally unforgiveable and grounds for termination.
Sorry to hear it -- I've had cars come back from the tire shop with the lugnuts just spun on by hand, forgetting that important step with the torque wrench. Very scary as a driver, and even scarier as a motorcyclist to think of a car wheel turned into a missile.
It's worth buying a large ft/lb torque wrench (which will also get used when you work on your Duc) and re-check the torque on the lug nuts any time someone works on the wheels. While nuts that aren't torqued enough are uncommon (but really dangerous!), probably 80-90% of the tire techs out there just smack the impact gun on there and significantly OVER torque the lugnuts. At the very least it's a huge annoyance if you get a flat and need to try to break the nuts free with one of those dinky 10" lug wrenches that come standard with most cars (also a good reason to carry one of those big four-way lug wrenches in every car), and in rare cases it can lead to lug failure. Really the proper torque values for those suckers is a lot lower than you'd think:
http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/tech/techpage.jsp?techid=107 (http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/tech/techpage.jsp?techid=107)
Too bad for your friend. I hope he heals well. I know this kind of stuff can spook a person bigtime but you have to climb back on the horse. [moto] He can thank his lucky stars that it didn't hit him directly and that it wasn't any bigger.
Not that I want to scare your buddy or anyone else, but unfortunately this type of thing is more common than you might think. We had a rash of wheels coming off transport trailers a few years ago in this part of the world. A few caused some horrendous injuries and deaths to both car drivers and pedestrians. An investigation showed most were attributed to under (or over) torquing, worn out bolt holes and a few to a shipment of sub-standard wheel studs from somewhere in Asia. There is now actually a government certification course required for truck wheel installers.
I personally witnessed one such event. Lucky for me I saw the oncoming wheel and I was able to watch it smash into the wall of the building I was sitting in and then bounce off again in another direction!
This poor guy wasn't so lucky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7BJrUOzUh4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7BJrUOzUh4)
Here in the UK, I have noticed many trucks fitted with these, the driver checks them on his 'pre-flight' inspection.
(http://www.tyre-rite.co.uk/images/12719%20LARGE.jpg)
http://www.tyre-rite.co.uk/detail.aspx?ID=206 (http://www.tyre-rite.co.uk/detail.aspx?ID=206)
:o wow...
hope your buddy feels better soon!
check your tires gang!
My brother was hit by an oncoming tire in his pickup truck about ten years ago.... bounced right on up into his windshield and totaled it.
Sounds like a scene from a movie doesn't it?
Ext. Country road- Day
A small pickup drives past a fruit stand.
Int. Pickup- continuous
The driver fiddles with the radio station, settling on a country song, something old, maybe by Willie Nelson.
Close-up Drivers face as panic wipes across it.
Drivers POV as a tire skittles off of an oncoming car, bounding into his lane and in SLOW MOTION smashing through the windsheild!
Cut to:
Ext. Country road - moments later
The pickup is halfway into a strawberry field, the driver looking at it with a look of ocnsternation. The driver from the newly re-engineered tricycle runs over.
Trike Driver
You okay buddy?
Truck driver lays him out.
The end.
That could have happened to me.
A mechanic once forgot to tighten the Lug Nuts on the front left tire of my car. When I got off the freeway, I heard a strange bumping noise so i pulled over. 3 of the 5 Lug Nuts had fallen off and the remaining two were barely hanging on the threads. It seemed like they just finger tightened it and forgot to use the impact wrench.
I took a lug nut off of two of the good tires and used it to get to the nearest parts shop. Disaster averted! [clap]