Safe Speed Forums

Car passenger killed in freak accident after tyre she was holding on her lap explodes

A very unusual and tragic accident and the comments section gives lots of advice on what she should and shouldn't have done, but again it strikes me that if manufacturers are supplying these things then why are they not thinking about where to put the full size tyre that has been removed?

After all it's a fairly reasonable assumption to make that if a tyre has been removed it's because of damage and could be considered to be in a less than 'safe' state.

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Which is why a prudent person would deflate it. Some education needed.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Education yes.

Playing devil's advocate, if the wheel 'well' was big enough to take the full size tyre even if the tyre did go bang it wouldn't take out the passenger.

Effectively a design that takes into account the 'uneducated' and fails to safe.

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

But if the wheel well was big enough to take a full size tyre there would be no point in having a space saver tyre. Which, in my opinion would be a good thing, but car buyers prefer the increased luggage space.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

My MR2 has a skinny space saver but the wheel well is big enough for a normal wheel...so why the space saver you may ask...me too!

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

That's truly amazing! I've never heard of such an event before, and am struggling to get my head round it. Let's say the tyre had 35PSI in it (probably less). I wouldn't have thought it would kill if it went pop. I could believe it might blind someone or take out a few teeth, but I'd never have thought a car tyre could kill. I must also admit that I wouldn't have thought to deflate it either. I think I'd have probably stuck it in the boot and taken luggage out of the boot to put on my lap instead - but only 'cause I wouldn't have fancied getting brake dust all over the place.

On the Daily Wail thread, someone made a good point about it warming up once it was inside the car - increasing the pressure within it. That seems like a fair point.

Depending on the design of the car, it can be difficult to make the spare wheel well big enough for a full-sized tyre (especially the sort of size you'd get on a Z3). The spare wheel well is often one of the biggest weaknesses when you have a rear impact. Obviously, a flat floor is much stronger if someone runs into the back of you.

Hopefully, there will be a thorough investigation, but on the face of it, this just looks like one of those freak accidents that's very unlikely to happen again. Naturally, that will be little conslation to her poor widower - to whom I'd extend my sincerest condolences. After surviving active service, it must just seem so cruel.

Had similar thoughts to Mole -but has cost etc gone astray -- couple with kids buy car (possibly with no thought to spare -well would most of us) -then one day ,Mr & Mrs TwoKids are coming home .Boot is full of kiddies bits & pieces .So out comes the spare - gets changed ( by modern wife -as he's good with nappies, useless with wheel changes) and then comes the problem - it won't fit in the wheelwell . But the boot's full - so where does it go - now comes the time when Mr & Mrs TwoKids wished they'd listened to the "Which" report on spare tyres ,and cars which can carry a full sized tyre in the boot .It's bad enough to have to get Tarquine & Sylvester 's kit out of the boot once ,to then find that the wheel that came off the car won't fit in to let mummy close the cover etc .

Spz folks - this one needs lots & lots of smilies - wqs a quick poke at modern day parents and their choice of car .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I rather doubt that, given that from specs I've seen there are quite a few cars pre and post space saver have the same boot space, examples that immediately spring too mind are loan cars I've had when mine was in for a service (Astra and Mk I C-Max) and and the fact that space savers are a fraction of the cost of a 'proper' spare I suspect that line is one trotted out by the manufacturers to justify fitting a space saver.

As an aside later C-Max came with a spare wheel as standard and sat on a foam spacer to stop it rattling and offered a full size spare as an optional extra.




But often the well is reinforced and inside the structural section of the car.

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

That may be true but it is not obvious IME flat sheets of thin metal are very easy to bend and adding flanges strengthens them enormously.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Weight saving - to help reduce official CO2 figures - is another factor.

Some new cars that do have spare wheel wells are now supplied without a standard spare wheel at all for this purpose. Daft, obviously, but a classic example of unintended consequences.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I can think of one good reason for "Skinny spares"

Most high end cars these days have directional tyres, some have positional (? IE location specific, EG NSF etc ) so a standard "Spare" would be of little use.

(I suspect this is becoming increacingly common on boring cars too, though I may be wrong)

As for the failure

In the report I read the tyre had a "Bulge". This would imply a weak spot. I can imagine that if a chunk of tyre (say) the size of the palm of my hand (weighing, oh say a pound or so) was to hit somebody in the face with the force of about 700Lbs behind it (20"^2/35psi) I can Certainly see how this might prove fatal.

Perhaps the lesson here is (as has already been suggested) that if you are going to transport a suspect tyre in this way, it should be deflated first.

Whilst this is a very sad incident it is also likly to be as a result of a rare confluance of circumstances.

My big concern is that this incident will be used as an exuse to launch a vast "investigation" employing a whole squadron of public sector useless eaters for 18 months or so costing hundreds of thousands of pounds (or even more) before concluding that this is, erm

"A freak accident but it should be reccomended that damaged tyres should be deflated before transport."

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

I'm very surprised a truly shocked by this, I really wouldn't have thought such an event could be fatal. I've had a tyre pop while inflating it as there was an unnoticed weakness in the sidewall. Ironically I was looking for defects when it went, I'd inflated it and was kneeling beside it turning it over to examine the other side ... just as I noticed the bulge in the sidewall it went, pretty much right in my face, pressure was as I recall around 35 psi. The result was to have dust blasted into my face & eyes, not exactly comfortable but hardly life threatening, and after washing eyes out, a hour or so later was absolutely fine. Yup that could have been a lot worse, could certainly have been blinded, and gave me a whole new level of respect for tyres, but no way was it life threatening.

Could it be that for some reason that particulr tyre had been grossly overinflated? faulty pressure gauge? someone made an error? Was that why it had a bulge in the sidewall in the first place? Not sure what the burst pressure of an average car tyre is but probably somewhat over 100 psi? At that kind of pressure I could see it doing a lot of damage.

A freak accident is a hard way to lose a loved one, sincere condolences to all her family and friends.

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You only need two tools - WD40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape. :0)

replacement cars are at the back of my mind and moving a little to the fore. I am not keen to by a car without a full sized spare, jack and wheel brace, mainly for reasons of practicality. Sure, Joe Bloggs hasn't had a puncture in 500,000,000 miles of driving on dirt roads and sees no reason to cart a spare 'round with him. But I bloody well have had punctures of the side wall variety and want a decent spare.

My manager at work had 2 punctures in a very short spare of time in his E90, both resulted in a ruined weekend. Remember, this is progress.

Like most people, I'd never considered that if the car cannot accommodate a full sized spare, what do you do with the full sized wheel when you put the space saver on? I hope the family sue the manufacturer and hope this jolts them into inventing cars that come with a full sized spare, like the used to do.

Reinforced, yes, but in the wrong plane to be of much real use.

Typically you get the rear bumper mounted to "crash cans" (short sections of crushable tube), which are, in turn bolted to the backs of the main longitudinal chassis rails. These are usually top hat sections spot welded to the bottom of the floorpan. They act as the "flanges" that stabilise the flat section of floor. IF all kept in one plane, the sheet floor can be quite stiff in compression. If you introduce a discontinuity (the spare wheel well) to it, you give it a couple of places to start buckling. After a relatively minor rear end shunt, you can find the car written-off because the floorpan around the spare wheel well is distorted. To get the insurance group down, it's a good idea to elimiate (or minimise) that weakenss. Ideally, it should be just the "disposable" bumper and crash cans that get replaced.

I agree with all the other CO2 stuff. Any weight saving is good when it comes to CO2 and fuel consumption. Also the very valid point about directional tyres. Some sportier cars (not sure about the Z3) also have different tyre sizes front to rear. Also agree on cost. A big alloy wheel and fancy tyre (times however many cars you sell) is a saving not to be sneezed at.

It wasn't the space spacer that exploded it was the full size one.



I can understand a full size tyre causing death.

Mole, probably, when this last came up I weighed my full sized spare (steel wheel), jack and wheel brace on our fancy electronic scales at work. It came to 15kg. Exactly how much fuel/CO2 can I expect to save by jettisoning this? Keep in mind that I only weigh 9 stone.

How much fuel would be used recovering the car and carting it home, then carting it to a tyre fitter when they are open?

Society is obsessed with safety, our cars are loaded to the roof with passive safety guff to help protect the inept. Yet for the sake of a spare, that I could change in 10 minutes max, our shiney new car is quite capable of leaving us stranded on the hard shoulder while recovery turns up.

Could this be the "American " disease -we could now see all devices to allow driver to change wheel being outlawed ,and wheel change only being allowed by emergency organisations - that's what s happened to fleet drivers .Or a law requiring drivers to get a test certificate from a tyre depot /equivalent after removing /replacing wheels - I shudder to think of the problems - last place I went to quoted my Alloy wheel torque at 120 Ft/Lb - when the handbook quoted it at 120 Newton Metre ( 120 Nt/M = 90 ftlb ) .But now since I have alloys ,and have seen problems with the standard wheel brace ,I now carry a torque wrench set to 90 ftlb -.bUT THEN - next move -my torque wrench will have to be Calibrated ,or it's no use .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Quite possibly The only thing that I think might be preventing it is the risk that someone might get mugged / raped / run into, whilst waiting for the recovery organisation. I'm sure that if that could be ruled out, the authorities wouldn't think twice!

...and I think the last time it came up, I admitted that it would be stuff-all, in practical terms! HOWEVER, consider the situation from the car manufacturer's point of view. He gets to save 15kg (plus the weight of the larger spare wheel pressing, less the weight of the space saver) - let's say 5+kg. Saving 5kg elsewhere on the car would be likely to cost a 6 or even 7 figure sum to get into production. Let's also, for the time being, forget about the fact that it also solves, very neatly for him, the problem of directional tyres and different sizes front to rear. Now let's imagine that the weight saving has a MINISCULE effect on its official CO2 and fuel consumption figures. Let's suppose, as a best case, that it makes the difference between 226g/km of CO2 and 225g/km. That's a pretty impressive saving in road tax for UK-registsed cars. It will make a difference to sales on the forecourt!

Now let's consider the EC's New Car CO2 Regulation. Over the next few years, it obliges all manufacturers to cut their average CO2 emissions across their product ranges by x%. There are serious fines for each g/km of CO2 over the limit you are. A hundred Euros PER CAR could be on the cards. Multiply that by several hundred thousand cars a year and you're talking serious moolah!

Now when you add to that, the cost saving of the full-sized wheel and tyre in the first place, it all becomes a bit of a "no-brainer" from the manufacturer's point of view!

Yes, he might loose the odd sale to people who won't buy a car without a full-sized spare, but on balance, there just aren't enough of them to make it a problem - especially compared to the extra sales he'll get for being the in the next tax bracket down! If he can get it an insurance group lower because it's a bit stronger at the back - even better! In the next few years, I can see them dumping the spare altogether (and the jack, wheelbrace etc) and fitting run-flat tyres or those cans of foam. Bigger weight saving, bigger cost-saving, AND they won't get sued by Muppets who can't use a jack without hurting themselves!

As for the fuel used to cart it about - what do they care! It's not coming out of THEIR CO2 allowance!

Until it hits them in the pocket, you may as well bark at the moon! My guess is that like me, you wouldn't be buying a new car anyway. People who buy new cars tend not to get their hands dirty and (I will be doing a FEW a dis-service here!) wouldn't know what to do with a jack and wheelbrace if their lives depended on it - especially if it's got fancy locking wheel nuts as well! What I'm trying to say, is that the manufacturer won't give a monkey's *%&! what you and I think!