I still see the chunk of tractor-trailer tire flipping end-over-end in slow motion towards us. Growing bigger and bigger, it slammed into the front of our car and bounced off the hood, before disappearing in a flash. The actual elapsed time was perhaps one second from start to finish, but it was enough, and the damage was done. 

We’d just spent a wonderful week in Illinois seeing family over the holidays. My sisters and brother-in-law, old friends, nieces and nephews, and grand-nieces and nephews. It was great fun. It had been a long time since we’d returned to Ottawa for Christmas. Cath and I vowed it wouldn’t be as long before our next visit home over the holidays. 

We started our return to Virginia mid-morning on the 27th.  We were a little over two hours from Ottawa and somewhere between Champaign and Danville, Illinois on Interstate 74 when the accident with the tire occurred. It was raining and the car ahead of us ran over what turned out to be a chunk of tractor-trailer tire, perhaps three feet long. I saw it come out from under the car ahead of us, spinning over and over on the ground and then flipping end-over-end in slow motion through the air. It was on the ground, then in the air, then slamming loudly into the front of our car and hood before disappearing over the top of the car, all in an instant of time. I don’t know what it did to the car behind us. There was no time to react or do anything, which was probably just as well, given the traffic behind us and to our right. 

After the immediate shock wore off, I was pissed. “WTF?! How the hell did that happen? Why hadn’t the driver ahead of me swerved to miss the tire? How could my luck be so bad? Which gods-of-fate conspired to have us in that exact location at that exact time to be on the receiving end of the tire?”

Through the windshield, I could see the hood was dented from the impact. I cursed and pulled off the highway at the next exit. There, I saw the driver’s side of the front bumper was also damaged … dammit.

I climbed back in the car, stewing in silence. Cathy and I finally talked a bit and then we made a series of calls. The first was to our insurance company. They were fine on the phone and after verifying we were OK, said call back when we had an estimate. I next called our garage in Virginia to see if we could bring the car by on Monday and have them take a look. Dan, the owner, said bring it in, although there might be a delay for the actual repair. Their head body guy was out – his wife’s cancer had returned and he needed time off. The final call went to my old friend Mark. I thought I might get a little sympathy from him, I guess. His comment? “Jeez were you lucky Max! A couple of inches higher, and it might have smashed straight into the windshield! Who knows what would have happened then!?”  It turned out Mark had some experience in this area. Years ago, he was driving out west on a hunting trip when his driver’s side window imploded. Luckily, he was wearing glasses, but he was picking glass out of his face for a couple of days. We wished each other Happy New Year before saying goodbye. 

As I drove along, I calmed down and then my brain did a complete flip. We had been lucky. Damned lucky with the tire and the accident and what could have happened.*  And then I thought more broadly and about what a fool I was. Not only had we been lucky with the accident, we’d also just come from a wonderful visit with family and friends. We had celebrated life and the holidays with love and joy. We were returning to our home in Virginia and would be among friends who loved and cared about us. We had our lives and our (in general) good health. 

God whispered to me, “Don’t take any of this for granted Max. Life is short. While you are here, honor yourself, your wife, your family and your friends with love.”

I took him at his word. As 2024 ends, I wish you all the best for 2025. May you too find peace, joy and love in the turmoil that is our world today. None of us knows what the future will bring. Seize the day, honor life, and love those who are dear to you. Nothing is guaranteed past this exact instant. It took a slo-mo spinning chunk of tire to remind me of that.

Addendum:

  • *I’ve since learned that “Road gator” is the term truckers use for the scattered remains of tread from blown tractor-trailer tires seen on highways – they can resemble an alligator’s back and can be deadly. They often contain reinforced steel and even a small piece can tear apart the undercarriage of a motor vehicle, including the oil pan and exhaust system.  According to road safety sources, the damage can, “be even worse if a motorist, in a last-second bid to avoid a gator, swerves without checking for surrounding traffic.” An AAA study found that 37 percent of all deaths in road-debris crashes occurred because a driver tried to avoid striking an object on the road.  Another study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety released in 2016 examined data from 2011 through 2014 and found, “road debris contributed to crashes causing 39,000 injuries and more than 500 deaths.”   We were lucky indeed. 

Discover more from Live Life Exuberantly

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

11 thoughts on “Chunk of Tire”

  1. Glad you are ok. I once had sheet rock fly off a truck and land across my windshield going south on I95. Could not see a thing. Also had a chair fly off a truck and hit my windshield on the Capital Beltway. All we can do is be grateful in retrospect.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  2. Thanks for the words of wisdom. I’ll reinforce that warning about swerving to avoid road debris having retired from running a taxi company for the last 20 years. One of the things on my to do list is get a dash cam.

    Like

    Reply

  3. I had a close call involving a deer on the highway. It was a very crowded commute home near Thanksgiving several years ago. Traffic was moving fast but there was a lot of it. Suddenly a deer was in front of me. I had nowhere to go left or right because it was an area with no shoulder (concrete barrier wall) and a car was to my left. My instinct was to break, but as I started to, in my mirror I could see the lights of a tractor trailer bearing down from behind. I took my foot off the break and just held my line straight ahead. There was no other choice. I hit the deer so hard and square it threw the hood up into the windshield which crackled and bowed but didn’t shatter. I could see nothing. Thankfully the hood kept the deer from coming through the windshield. I just kept driving in my lane until I could see shoulder out my passenger window, the hood had remained twisted and up. I pulled off with white knuckles and racing heart. The truck behind had slowed after the deer went over my car and under his wheels. He pulled off as well to see that I was ok. He told me he thought he was going to watch a multi-car collision unfold and complemented me for my quick thinking and calm. To be honest I wasn’t thinking or calm, just reacting and it worked out. It could have very easily gone the other way. There were so many moments in that few seconds that could have changed the outcome for me and many others around me on the road that night. I remember clearly, really feeling the meaning of Thanksgiving that year.

    Thanks for the reminder to embrace life. It’s been a tough year and easy to forget how much we still have.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. Your story reminds me of my similarly close call.

    Just quietly driving in Kentucky

    It was the summer of ’63. The folks had moved to Connecticut that spring, and mom thought it would be a good idea to take a little road trip to see her brother Bob, who we had seen very few times since we had moved to Denver from the east coast. Dad had to work so it was just the two of us, happily motoring to Louisville. It was a beautiful spring day and we were having a delightful time. There were few interstate highways then, and state roads gave way to county roads on occasion.

    We were driving through West Virginia on a well-paved one-lane each way county road, with a fairly steep hill on our left across the opposing lane and a pretty sheer drop-off to our right. Going uphill and we caught up to a stake-bed truck with half a dozen bags of cement in the back. He was moseying along at 30 mph in a 45-mph zone, but what did we care – so it would take a few minutes more to get to Bob’s house. Besides, there was a double-yellow line in the middle of the road, and we were going uphill around a blind corner as the road wove up the side of the hill to our left.

    We were maybe three car-lengths back when he hit a bump and, in slow motion, one of those 50 lb. bags of cement became airborne, lazily going up maybe 5-6 feet in the air before starting to come back down, seemingly aiming directly for our windshield. I instinctively turned the steering wheel hard-left then straightened it out, watching out of my peripheral vision as the bag came down where we would have been, then quickly cut the wheel back to the right to move in behind the truck again (who had no way to know what had happened). Just then, a car came down the lane we had just vacated. I looked at mom, she looked back at me, and we each breathed a big sigh of relief.

    My reflexes and instincts were good, but yet one more time, I was also lucky. Very lucky.

    I believe that I let Uncle Bob, my mother’s brother who I was named after, make me a Kentucky bourbon Manhattan that night.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. So true, Max. Life is short and we should be grateful for every day that we have. We are very grateful that we did not lose you and Cathy. Happy New Year to you both!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment