In my 30 years living New Jersey and half-century alive altogether, I’ve seen my share of tire blowouts. (Over 4 dozen on my street alone). I saw one last week. While it doesn’t directly affect me, I come upon people who park their vehicle (as shown in these pics). People never consider the fact that they tear rubber from their tires each time they park this way.
Picture the disaster arising from blowouts due to rubbing tires along curbs when parking, such as “accidents” resulting in injury, damage and expense to you and/or others. There are sensible ways to park without a vehicle sticking out in the street and not tearing its tires upon curbs.
Excuses? Okay, then go ahead and take a risk. It’s much easier to face the consequences of an avoidable problem later rather than to take simple precautions. And since I had written this passage, the practices of drivers parking vehicles against the curb continues, as well as the accidents happing from blow-outs. But nobody talks about it. Most people report it to insurance companies as “defective tires”. This could represent how they take care of their vehicle in general.
The average passenger car tire weighs between 15 and 20 pounds before air is pumped into it, which means a set of 4 tires would weight between 60 and 80 pounds. Fill them with air and expect them to hold up a vehicle that weighs over 2000 pounds (1 ton).
In addition, many flat tires that are not blow outs are from loss of air as a result of the tire not able to contain its air capacity. Tires have to be in very good condition not to go flat. Rubber takes abuse when drivers drive excessively fast, or turn harshly. When you hear the screeches of cars turning it is more rubber being torn from the tire, such as it is when it is pressed up against a curb when parking. But for most people, that is not a concern until they get into an accident.
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