>>is perfectly safe
Anyone who say *anything* is perfectly safe is deluding themselves.
90 mph on an empty motorway,...., ahem autobahn, is a risk I'm happy to take.
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90 mph on an empty motorway .... ahem autobahn is a risk I'm happy to take.
Well, we'll have to disagree on that then. This particular incident was rather, um, exciting (yes, that's the word) at 65. It's likely we would have rolled if we'd been going much faster.
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>>Well, we'll have to disagree on that then.
Getting into a car at all is risky. Some idiot can run into you while you're parked at the traffic lights and cause serious damage to you. It's a question of where to draw the line.
For me, the probability that there's going to be a life threatening problem on an empty motorway at 90 mph is much less than on a packed motorway at 70.
Taking your tyre example, on an empty motorway, there are only 4 tyres, my tyres, which I keep in tip-top condition, which could fail and cause me harm. On a busy motorway, there are hundreds of tyres, in who knows what sort of condition, which could fail, and lead me into a potentially harmful accident.
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Taking your tyre example on an empty motorway there are only 4 tyres my tyres which I keep in tip-top condition which could fail and cause me harm. On a busy motorway there are hundreds of tyres in who knows what sort of condition which could fail and lead me into a potentially harmful accident.
The other factor is that on the empty motor way you have some level of control over mitigating the risk. I.e. you can check that your tyres are in tip top condition, where as you have no control over the others.
For me risk taking is about understanding and having sone level of control of the risk.
Life is full of risks, even eating a bag of peanuts can be deadly...
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What triggered me to start this thread were the assertions of a few motorcaravan drivers who say that they have had blowouts with no obvious cause.
Motorcaravans are quite heavy beasts (basicly laden commercial vehicles) and ususally only do a small annual mileage. These drivers complaining about blowouts are adament that their tyres were correctly inflated, not kerbed, bought new, not overloaded and not driven too fast (difficult to do in a motorcaravan anyway).
One or two such claims could be dismissed, but a whole group should (must?) have more weight attached to it. So what is causing these tyres to fail? Is it a manufacturer's fault (the state of these tyres post-blowout makes examination very difficult).
Any ideas?
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Motor caravans are often heavily loaded (close to the maximum gvw in many cases). Also, a lot of such vehicles are only used every few weeks, leaving the opportunity for flat spots or uv cracking to develop while parked.
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It's a very long time since I last bought a new tyre.
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Motorcaravans as you say are often fully loaded and they (and large caravans) often run at or near to maximum tyre pressure. This shortens the life of the tyre, but since they don't do many miles the tyre often looks 'like new'.
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Any ideas?
Cheap tyres, combined with the rhythmic side to side swaying of the caravan?
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Life is full of risks ...
Profound, man, really profound.
But why add to them unnecessarily? Driving at 90mph on the motorway:
a) isn't particularly exciting or even especially interesting
b) isn't much of a challenge, even in my car, though it would take a while to get there
c) doesn't make you more attractive to women (or men)
d) is more risky, but more importantly more perilous in the event of a tyre failure or similar
Given the lack of real benefits, I choose to control the levels of risk and peril by not driving at 90 (the thrill alone might make 180mph worth the risk). The reason is that I have had two sudden tyre failures in my relatively short driving career that would probably have had serious consequences had I been doing so. I am fastidious about checking and replacing tyres and always have been, but a tyre can be perfect at the start of a journey and pick up damage along the way, or can appear perfect but not be. We disagree, so whoop de doo. Drive carefully and good luck.
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In all my years of driving and in the motor trade I've heard only two proper blowouts, (Exploding tyre).
The first one, back in the 70's happened when a fellow mechanic was inflating a Mini spare tyre, there was a loud bang - the tyre bead had blown over the rim.
The second was a couple of years ago, an almighty bang, rattled doors and windows for hundreds of yard, it was a bus tyre, parked in the depot next to my workplace after a motorway run.
Back in the 70's (again) a young lady came into the workshop complaining that she'd pumped her tyres up with the free air, and they still looked flat. The Michelin X ' s on her BMC 1100 were at 80psi. No explosion though - but I was a bit apprehensive whilst deflating them.
More recently I witnessed a Transit van clip the kerb on a bend. I watched the n/s/f tyre go down as he passed me, and heard the hissing, no bang though !
I guess that most 'blowouts' are ordinary punctures and the driver just keeps going until he's forced to stop with a shredded tyre, then it's a blowout.
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I was bimbling along on the autobahn somewhere in NW Germany at about 65 (as I do) and was passed by (I think) an Astra or equivalent doing 80+. When he was about 100yds ahead his offside rear exploded visibly and audibly. Luckily it didn't seem to send the car off course, or he controlled it well. A bit worrying though.
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