Lightning Reflexes Allow Driver to Expertly Dodge Flying Truck Tire

The task of relaying the information to the brain falls into the hands of the five senses. OK, four, as taste rarely has anything to do with driving. You smell something’s burning, you stop and go for the fire extinguisher.

You hear a rattle, you stop and check it out. You feel in your steering you’ve lost grip, you apply the correct countermeasures or, depending on skill, begin to pray. You see a large wheel being hurled at you by the truck you’re trailing, you swerve and hope nothing’s coming from the opposite lane to make the prospect of smashing into the flying projectile a much more appealing alternative.

What makes this driver’s reaction that much more commending is that nothing really announced what was about to happen. The truck simply hits a gaping pothole (that the driver couldn’t have noticed anyway) that sends the rear-right tire spinning in the air straight towards the guy’s windshield. The whole scene looks like he was driving behind some weird tennis ball machine that was converted into throwing truck tires for some perverted reason.

It’s not just the quick reaction times he showed - equally impressive is the precision with which he executed the evasion maneuver (even though the speed isn’t that high). Some people might have avoided the tire as well, but they would have ended up in the ditch on the other side of the road, or at least facing the way they came. Losing control while quickly swerving left and right doesn’t take much. After all, it’s why the Scandinavians have come up with the so-called moose (or elk) test.

On the other hand, the driver can be thankful for that flying rubber: if the truck had gone over that pothole cleanly, it’s very likely he would have hit it himself, which would have resulted in two flat tires, if not even worse. You see, an optimist will always find some silver lining.