Saw a weird thing today on the road

[chunkolini]

Approaching a roundabout on the ross end of the A40, I saw a big puff of smoke in the middle of the roundabout, slow down, sharpen wits, prepare for the unexpected etc etc.
Smoke blows away, then round the roundabout comes a huge lorry wheel, tyre intact rolling happily along 20mph? with huge balls of fire coming out of the middle of it. No sign of carnage at the roundabout.

Weird. Anybody got any ideas?

Chunko'.

 

[Wozzaaah]

Very strange! Didn't Bob Dylan once write a song about that?
That could have done some serious damage!

Once saw a similar thing on the Bristol ring road, a young lad sat in a Ford KA on the verge with only 3 wheels. Pulled over to check if he was ok, laughed a bit and asked him where the wheel was. He pointed down the road and said "dunno, it went that way and I lost sight of it"
I asked if he had a spare to which he replied sheepishly "that was the spare"

 

[Drains]

So Chunko', that's dodgy thing number two. Everything comes in threes my friend... What's next?

 

[chunkolini]

Cheers Drains!

Wozzah, a few weeks I was at the same spot and there was a puzzled looking blokey with a three wheeled merc, scratching his head and looking lost.

Another weird near death experience this time involving wheels.

Years and years ago, M4, Honda 250 RS; whats that black thing bouncing up and down? A lorry wheel then flew past my head.

Truly the world is a weird place.

Aha!! Drains I have the third dodgy thing. I am in danger of acquiring a Ural. A 'mate' is threatening to swap one for a piece of sculpture. A semi runner.....

Chunko'.

 

[rtbcomp]

Approaching a roundabout on the ross end of the A40, I saw a big puff of smoke in the middle of the roundabout, slow down, sharpen wits, prepare for the unexpected etc etc.
Smoke blows away, then round the roundabout comes a huge lorry wheel, tyre intact rolling happily along 20mph? with huge balls of fire coming out of the middle of it. No sign of carnage at the roundabout.

Weird. Anybody got any ideas?

Chunko'.

Failed wheel bearing, the fire would have been burning grease.

I saw something similar on the M6 near Carlisle, a LHD lorry had smoke pouring out of the right hand front wheel. I sped ahead to the nearest phone, but they were out of order. I tried to flag him down but he couldn't see the smoke from his side of the cab and he didn't stop.

I often wondered what happened, I had to turn off before I caught up with him again.

 

[Pete.]

Not a 'Urinal'

Years ago we saw a car on the dual carriageway between Plumstead and Thamesmead run over a car back seat lying in the road. The seat base didn't come out of the back as the car passed and I guess the car driver who was really motoring figured it would just come out soon enough. A bit further down the road we passed the same car with occupants bailing out coz the seat had caught fire. The car endded-up burnt right out.

 

[pedrobedro]

Truly the world is a weird place.

Aha!! Drains I have the third dodgy thing. I am in danger of acquiring a Ural. A 'mate' is threatening to swap one for a piece of sculpture. A semi runner.....

Chunko'.

Don't do it unless the sculpture is a piece you hate, you will hate the Ural if you like bikes

 

[KTMMICK]

Lorries or trucks can have this happen.........the nearside wheelnuts undo themselves if not checked or tightened correctly.

 

[MrFluffy]

Theyre usually handed opposite on sides of the lorry to stop this, the rule being move the lever towards a certain end to loosen (the rear) and the other end to tighten.
Lorry tyre fires usually happen when theyre ran underinflated, because theres usually so many other axles/wheels to take the loading, its difficult to notice it happening from the cab. Running soft generates a huge amount of heat in the carcass, but when moving along the cooling airstream stops them catching fire.
Its not until you slow down or stop that the fires tend to start, usually they stay attached and bbq the trailer/unit though.
If it was just the tyre sans the inner rim on fire rolling away, it probably caught fire when it got hot and as the driver negoitated the roundabout popped off the rim as it was soft and had lost pressure...

The three things to be especially wary of hgv's near you.
1 tyre fires, but theyre usually more the drivers problem.
2 the plastic mudguards (or wings as theyre known) tearing off their mounts, whereby they wind up and pop off with extreme force usually through some poor ******s windscreen
3) bricks stuck between the twin wheels exiting a site and as the tyres warm up, the bricks get fired out the back...

Used to work on units many moons ago...

 

[Pete.]

We stopped a tipper which was leaving site once with a huge piece of flint wedged between two tyres. I shudder to think what sort of damage it would have caused to another motorist had it been thrown out at speed.

 

[English Steve]

Aha!! Drains I have the third dodgy thing. I am in danger of acquiring a Ural. A 'mate' is threatening to swap one for a piece of sculpture. A semi runner.....

Does it have a chair on it Chunko? Brilliant fun if it does! I had one for a while in the 80's - many a panic on left-handers when the chair wheel left the ground. In the end I strapped a flywheel off a Petter AC1 in the nose - worked a treat. Sideways around roundabouts was a regular party-piece.

 

[welshpug]

what a place to have that happen, not only the disastrous consequences of it hitting someone, but also that VOSA's inception yard is by one of the roundabouts near there!