Moron Skid Row

[Retrorockit]

On the same road as my 2nd previous post, but a section I refuse to ride, I saw some skid marks ( and gouges in the pavement) I couldn't figure out until my neighbor enlightened me. They went straight from the concrete median across 3 lanes of traffic and the bike lane, and then continued along the curb at the bike lane another 20 feet. My neighbor was a witness.
A jacked up Ford F250 with wheels that extend about 8" beyond the side of the bed swerved to avoid a stopped Toyota in the left lane. This failed because both rear wheels fell off the truck. (Moron this later). The driver jumped out and caught one of the wandering wheels, and the passenger was chasing the other down the road. My neighbor in an older Jeep Cherokee offered to block the wheel with his car but the passenger said he didn't want to get it scratched. The next car coming by ran over it because the driver was watching his mirror trying to figure out why the passenger was running away from the accident. He though the passenger was chasing my neighbor!

I'm sure you're wondering how an empty heavy duty pickup truck could have a simultaneous failure of 20 lug nuts at once! All you have to do is put 3 aluminum spacers behind each wheel to make the truck wider. Now the lug nuts are only holding on by about 3 threads. Be very careful which road you share. This is the only section of this road with a painted bike lane. The cub is blackened with tire marks from cars crossing the bike lane.

[AZguy]

Prolly just didn't properly torque the lug nuts?


This happened to a friend of mine (ok I admit, it was me)... we were rotating the tires on my van and like good mechanics we had hand tightened all the lugs before dropping it down and then taking a torque wrench to them all... on one wheel (front-right, I'll never forget) he though I torqued them and I thought he torqued them... fast forward to a week or two later and I'm driving down a busy freeway and next thing I know the whole van is shaking like there's not tomorrow and making gawdawful noise so I slow and pull to the side and thw wheel is still on but with one lug nut that was about two turns from coming off... fortunately there was an auto parts place about a mile away I was happy to walk to at that point... put a news set on and off I went but it was silly close to just coming off and there was very little warning from everything being fine to potentially not having a wheel...

[Retrorockit]

My neighbor is a mechanic also. He saw 3x1/4" spacers per wheel. That puts the lugnuts way out at the end of the studs. It also usually removes any hub centering effect on the axle. If they were properly torqued they probably would have come off in his hand.

[73Eldo]

If you watch any of those 'can't believe this made it down the road' sorts of videos the trucks are always by far the worst. Forgetting to tighten some bolts is one thing but you see some of the 'engineering' that goes on with some of those trucks and its amazing there are not a lot more issues. I suspect a lot of them fail before they even get out of their own driveways so that protects us to a point.

[Retrorockit]

My theory on this is that he added spacers until the lug nuts wouldn't reach. Then removed one. Problem solved!

[73Eldo]

I don't know if they would have to reach. Maybe some sheetrock screws would do the trick? Those would work great with wood spacers!

[Retrorockit]

That's probably plan B.

[Retrorockit]

Judging by the angle of the curb strike, and no damage to the double height guardrail there I thought he kept it in the street. I was wrong. He was plowing up both the bike lane and the sidewalk as he scraped down the road. The only way out would be a swan dive into the alligator infested canal.