Photo: Spring Township Police Department on Facebook, screenshot from video
A wheel set itself free from the rear axle of a truck in Spring Township, Pennsylvania, and it hit another vehicle. This might have been a tragedy, but nobody was injured in the incident, which was caught on camera from the vehicle that got hit by the wheel.
The vehicle in question is a Ford Explorer police interceptor, which was stationed on the raised lane divider. Fortunately for whoever was driving on the right of the Explorer, the wheel and tire were slowed down by the vehicle before being launched into the air and off to the opposite side of the road.
A rear wheel from a truck that is driving at highway speeds can have enough force to inflict a lot of damage. If a smaller vehicle was driving down the road, things might not have ended so easily. In the case of a motorcyclist or pedestrian, it would have resulted in death or severe injury.
As you can observe in the videos below, but also in the photo gallery, the windshield of the Explorer cracked, but its inner foils managed to keep it in one piece instead of having it break into thousands of shards.
That is thanks to a breakthrough achieved decades ago, in the form of glass lamination for automotive windows, and modern vehicles feature stronger glass than ever before.
The two police officers in the vehicle were lucky, as a different angle or pitch could have sent the wheel in the passenger compartment. Even with a laminated windshield, things would not have been so easy if it could not manage to keep the object outside the vehicle.
Bodycam footage from the driver of the Ford Explorer showed that the police officers inside the vehicle did not panic after getting struck by a runaway wheel, which is expected of them since they are trained law enforcement professionals, but they are still human, so their level of calm remains impressive.
A rear wheel from a truck that is driving at highway speeds can have enough force to inflict a lot of damage. If a smaller vehicle was driving down the road, things might not have ended so easily. In the case of a motorcyclist or pedestrian, it would have resulted in death or severe injury.
As you can observe in the videos below, but also in the photo gallery, the windshield of the Explorer cracked, but its inner foils managed to keep it in one piece instead of having it break into thousands of shards.
That is thanks to a breakthrough achieved decades ago, in the form of glass lamination for automotive windows, and modern vehicles feature stronger glass than ever before.
The two police officers in the vehicle were lucky, as a different angle or pitch could have sent the wheel in the passenger compartment. Even with a laminated windshield, things would not have been so easy if it could not manage to keep the object outside the vehicle.
Bodycam footage from the driver of the Ford Explorer showed that the police officers inside the vehicle did not panic after getting struck by a runaway wheel, which is expected of them since they are trained law enforcement professionals, but they are still human, so their level of calm remains impressive.
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