Stay alert out there

[Timbo1]

After mowing today I decided to take a short ride to cool off. 

So I'm heading east bound on 412 a three lane highway with moderate traffic and all of a sudden a few hundred feet ahead of me I see a huge dust cloud appear.

I could only make out portions of the rear of a couple vehicles as the cloud obscured them.  I braked and thought to myself a dump truck just lost some of their load so I moved over a lane to try to avoid any dirt or rock or whatever had been dumped on the road that may still be bouncing. 

The dust cloud cleared quickly and I soon seen what I thought to be a box truck veering toward the shoulder of the road. At about the same time I see a tire flying by the truck and into the ditch never to be seen again. I then see a second tire laying in the middle of the center lane. 

I'm almost to a stop by this point so I pull over to the shoulder passing the tire in the roadway by about 30 feet.  As I try to wave off traffic they just keep coming and it seems like I'm standing on the shoulder waving my arms for several minutes, it probably was only a minute or so but seemed like a long time.  Finally I see a SUV weaving all 3 lanes slowing down traffic enough to allow me time to run out and get the tire off the roadway.  It was a sheriff that was in the west bound lane that had seen what happened.  She said she seen the wheels come off and seen me on a bike and was scared for me.  So she had proceeded further and made a u-turn came back my direction slowing the traffic. 

As it turned out it was a Fedex van that had lost both left rear wheels.  The lady sheriff went up and spoke with the Fedex driver, came back and I asked if he was looking for his other tire & she said "it's a lady driver I'm surprised she kept it on the road".  I found that amusing, a lady sheriff disparaging a lady driver. 

The moral of the story is be alert out there.  Don't ride beside trucks any longer than necessary as you never know what may fly off them.

[Mooskee]

That hasbeen my policy for many years. I have aeen recap tirea come apart. Once back when they still ran the lock ring type tires, I witnessed one come apart up in front of me.