Did you know that, in 2017, tire blowout accidents alone resulted in over 730 fatalities on US roads?
Accidents involving tire blowouts can happen in the blink of an eye, much like many other risky car accidents. Your car might be moving down the road safely and smoothly, but then suddenly the tire blows out and sends the vehicle into a rapid spin. What are you supposed to do?
Have you ever been involved in a blowout car accident? To learn more about this type of crash and why you need to hire car accident lawyers in Houston, Texas, continue reading this article.
What is a Tire Blowout?
Accidents involving tire blowouts happen when a tire sustains enough damage to “blow out,” or lose all of its air at once. The car then becomes nearly impossible to control.
Some motorists may slam on the brakes right away, making it challenging for motorists behind them to stop in time. When they hear the explosion sounds brought on by the blowout, other drivers may yank the wheel or over-correct. A blown tire renders a vehicle unsafe to drive.
Sometimes, after an accident, drivers may find it difficult to simply maneuver the car safely to the side of the road. Even non-accident cars may need emergency tire repair without the quick installation of a spare after a tire rupture.
What Causes a Tire Blowout?
In the blink of an eye, a tire can blow out. Drivers frequently receive little to no advance notice of a blowout.
In a split second, the tire might change from securely carrying the car’s occupants to flat, frequently with a loud bang that can be extremely disturbing for everyone on the road. Numerous things might cause a tire to blow out.
The tires of cars frequently sustain damage when they encounter potholes. Sharp edges on large potholes have the potential to puncture tires. As a car passes through potholes, the pressure on the tire may quickly vary, increasing the chance of a blowout.
The chance of a tire blowing out is higher in under-inflated tires than in tires with the recommended amount of air in them, per the manufacturer.
In most cases, you don’t apply enough pressure to your car to seriously harm your tires. Normal passenger weight should not be an issue, for example, given the number of seats in your car.
If you overload your car, you might put too much pressure on your tires. This may increase the likelihood of a blowout.
Small punctures might gradually let the air out until your tires are under-inflated. Frequently, you might not detect a pressure differential or understand there is a problem until the absence of pressure results in a blowout.
Manufacturers of tires occasionally provide faulty goods that significantly raise the risk of blowouts. In certain situations, tires may have excessively thin walls or inadequate adhesion between the rubber and the internal fabric or steel cable that reinforces the tire’s structure.
Avoiding Tire Blowouts
The structural integrity and dependability of tires nowadays are higher than ever. Although the probability of tire blowouts is reduced as a result, they are still not completely avoided. Follow some of the important recommendations below if you want to keep yourself and your passengers safe by lowering the risk of tire blowout accidents.
Regularly check the pressure in your tires. Keep your tires filled to the manufacturer’s suggested tire pressure by consulting your owner’s handbook. Recall that lowering tire pressure will result in an increase in accident risk rather than a decrease.
Change your tires as necessary. Find out how to inspect your tires for excessive wear and tear indications. If one tire on your car starts to wear down faster than the others, it could be a sign of an alignment issue or that you need to rotate your tires more frequently.
Try the penny test while inspecting your tires: Put a penny into the tread of the tire with the head looking downward. You should get new tires if you can see the top of the head.
In comparison to worn-out, old tires that are getting close to the end of their useful life, new tires have a considerably reduced danger of blowing out.
As you pass across potholes, slow down. When you’re in a haste to go somewhere, you could find yourself blowing through potholes rather than slowing down to safeguard your car. Unfortunately, this can result in a sudden change in the air pressure inside your tire, which could blow out.
Instead, depart a little early to give yourself time to maneuver your car past potholes. To get to your destination, if at all possible, choose a different route on better-maintained highways.
Do Not Leave the Accident Scene
Unless you need to leave the site to protect yourself or to get medical help, you should stay at the scene. This is whether or not your car caused the accident. If not, watch for the police to show up.
If necessary, you can also call an ambulance to the scene of the accident to give medical care. After the policeman arrives on the scene, he will compile a report that will aid in determining the accident’s cause.
Get Medical Help
Medical care is still the top priority after any kind of disaster. Remember that many injuries, such as traumatic brain injury and damage to the spinal cord, might not be immediately apparent at the scene of the accident, especially if adrenaline and endorphins are still running through your body.
Get medical help as quickly as you can to prevent any injuries from getting worse.
Contact Your Insurance Company
If a tire blowout resulted in serious collision damage, you should get in touch with your insurance provider at once to let them know about the incident. If you have only liability insurance, your insurance company may only pay for damage to the other party’s vehicle. If you have full coverage insurance, this may also include damage to your vehicle that is not caused by a tire.
The process might be streamlined by alerting your insurance provider if the other driver’s tire blew, resulting in an accident. If you have full coverage insurance, your insurance company will frequently pay for damage to your car right away and then pursue compensation from the other driver to help you get back on the road more quickly.
Keep in mind that an insurance claim for a single tire blowout will not be honored. Even if you have full coverage insurance, the insurance company usually won’t just replace that tire for you if one of your tires blows out.
The insurance company may replace the entire vehicle along with tires for the new one if you total your car in an accident after a tire blows, but they are unlikely to offer coverage for a tire blowout that does not cause an accident.
Contact a Car Accident Lawyer
Working with a skilled auto accident lawyer can help you maximize your compensation and provide you peace of mind throughout the entire process when you sustain catastrophic injuries in a tire blowout accident. Ideally, you should speak with a lawyer as soon as possible following the incident.
Your lawyer can offer helpful guidance regarding the amount of compensation you should anticipate, assist with gathering witness accounts and other accident-related evidence, and even supply expert witnesses who can assist in identifying the accident’s cause.
Evaluating a Blown-Out Tire
Sometimes a tire blowout is so abrupt and forceful that only fragments of the tire can be salvaged. In some circumstances, though, you might need to recreate the tire to understand why it blew out.
Construction workers may occasionally leave behind machinery that damages the tire. If you can identify the person who dropped the object on the road, you can file a claim for damages against them.
In rare circumstances, you may be able to seek compensation from the city or other organization in charge of road maintenance if a pothole was the cause of the accident.
Seek a Car Accident Lawyer in Houston, Texas After a Blowout
You can better prepare for the possibility that you will experience a tire blowout by being aware of the possible causes of tire blowouts and how to act after an accident. This will lessen the possibility of a sudden tire blowout seriously hurting you or your passengers.
Consulting a car accident lawyer in Houston, Texas might help you make wiser decisions if a tire blowout has already resulted in catastrophic injury. Get in touch with O’Hara Law Firm by clicking here if you’ve been in a wreck.