I used to be a forklift operator, and at 11:40 I instinctively flinched seeing Adam Savage standing under the raised fork tines carrying the big rig. That's how you get yelled at by the yard manager lol
The same thing was done with three Mini Coopers in the original 1969 crime-caper film The Italian job. The difference was that they were all driven one after another into the back of a Harrington Legionnaire with all the seats taken out and a metal barrier put in to protect the driver. There were two individual wheel ramps, and the minis run into the converted coach, one after another. They did hit each other a bit and the steel barrier was pushed forwards, along with the driver, but a few inches. The Minis were FWD which might have helped a bit in getting the timing to back off the power at the right moment. The coach was run at 85 kph (53mph), the minis at 115 kph (72 mph).
Tire won’t explode for piercing it, well, very tiny chance. There are a lot of factors like under/ over inflated tyre working on road, air temperature, but when it goes boom, trust me, you don’t want to be anywhere near it. Short RUclips search truck tyre explosion would give you an idea :)
Some, yes.@@nishant54 most is enterteinment and food for thought. And that's plenty. That's why "Supertasks" by VSauce is the most important video ever made... it explains why even the foolish thoughts and experiments are important.
The smaller scale test was already done with Mini's in the original Italian job film. With Front wheel drive being a significant difference of course. Excellent show, and episode!
As a truck driver it’s a one in a million shot a blown tyre damages a passing vehicle. It’s the failed tyre throwing debris as it rotates that does the main damage. Just like you see here.
I agree. Most trailer tires are retreads, so I would assume that it would be the retread coming off that might do damage. I've often heard the debris on the highway referred to as 'gators', not that most people care enough to give them a name. I've had my Class 1 (Alberta semi truck license) for 22 years, for what it's worth. Afterthought: it wouldn't surprise me if retreaded tires are subject to regional laws. I wouldn't be surprised if there are many jurisdictions that don't even allow retreads to be run.
Totally agree specially if a brake fails and not noticed,locked on. The heat transfered to tire, expanding its contents. And when they go, its like a small carton of hho been ignited, not a shotgun noise, its scary loud. Personal expirience
for a motorcycle drafting behind a big-rig even at like 30+ meters away is easily doable and helps to eliminate a lot of turbulent air... I do it for long-hauls if I can manage it, get like 80mpg on avg.. and being a motorcycle I will out-brake it every time by a VERY long way.
Maybe one of my favorite episodes... and not just because I recently started binging Knightrider again... Man, that show takes me back something fierce.| Kit mounting The Rook never struck me as implausible, neither... if its a rear-wheel drive all you need to do is put her from Drive to Neut as as soon as you hit the Ramp... and KITT was definitely smart _and fast_ enough to do that on his own. Front-wheel drive? even easier; just a magnetic relay that disconnects the clutch.
@@atlehassum1492 i found a dvd box set at walmart last year, as i couldn't easily find it online for free. but it's getting harder to find dvd players, or laptops/pc's with a dvd drive, or even gaming consoles that will play dvd's. if you really want to watch it online, it looks like google and apple have episodes to "rent"
that was the first episode that I randomly downloaded somewhere in summer of 2007. Then I started from season 1 episode 1 a bit later and watched "weekly" until the very last episode.
The car behind the truck with 94% drag reduction makes sense.. as the truck moves through the air, there’s a literal negative pressure zone behind the truck a trailer.. it’s almost as if you’re moving 50 mph through a vacuum because of the negative pressure zone
That makes sense Dead Zone a protected area where the oncoming smoke doesn't reach protecting any following car from drag smoke was gathering behind the truck which proves to us that there is a low pressure area what we're going to do now is take a car in the same scale as the truck attach it to a force gauge and then see what kind of effect that low pressure has on the car but just before that the team first needs a baseline so the truck is removed from the track to see what the force of the oncoming wind is like on the car alone with the smoke off it may look like nothing's happening but the wind is roaring past the car at over 50 miles per hour and Grant gets a reading okay so it looks like we got a good Baseline definitely 0.142 pounds and that is just the wind on the car alone so that's the control the question now is will this figure reduce with a semi shielding the Airstream we're now full seven car lengths away do we have any drag whatsoever we have 21 drag reduction are you serious yeah wow for Carrie that was the wow factor so how about when the car gets dangerously close first they wind the truck in to decrease the distance to five inches or ten feet If This Were full scale all right so we're at 10 feet that's a 60 reduction in drag [Music] all right we're at six feet away from the truck ridiculous I don't think I'd want to drive that close to the back of a truck let me tell you you might want to reconsider 80 reduction in drag you're not definitely Drive all right let's go to two feet what are we reading you know what's crazy we're reading 93 reduction in drag are you serious yeah it's an astounding result at two feet drag is reduced almost
It may Help UR fuel milage...but I've heard Truck Drivers say that, That drag…..Hurts THEIRS. And like they said...DON'T follow up SO close to an 18 wheeler...if they have to slam on their brakes! UR IN 4 TROUBLE!
I've witnessed an actual semi truck tire blowout on i80 somewhere around Omaha, truck was going at least 80MPH. Let's just say I was happy to be a few hundred feet behind. Don't know if it would have been enough to behead someone, but it went up in a big cloud of smoke (initially thought the truck had exploded) with big chunk of rubbers all over the place. Quite humbling.
I Drive a truck for a living, the worst place you can be is behind a truck when a tire blows, here is Aussie land people seem to think that sitting behind a truck in kangaroo country is a way to stop yourself from hitting one with your car, when in fact the truck is like a honey badger, don't give to shits when don't even slow done.. just bonk the bull bar rolls it straight under the truck, the it flies out the back.. or goes under the wheels... you get the picture
I don’t tail gate trucks/Lorrie’s but even at a safe distance my MPG goes up by 5-8 more. Even with normal cars and following the 2 second rule will improve your MPG.
With good reason. If that truck must emergency brake you'll hit something that empty weigh more than ten times your car. No nickle and dyme is worth your life.
The usual cause of tire failure is heat. This can be caused by under inflation, brakes dragging or bearing failure. Most of the time, the tire disintegrates spreading chunks of flying rubber. Other times, the tire can catch fire. It's not pretty.
And now thanks to Mythbusters I can not pass a truck on the highway without thinking about my head getting chopped off. Thanks for the paranoia Mythbusters! It helps a lot 😀
13:26 as a Trucker I can confirm, when the tyre explodes, parts of tire manages to fly over 3 lanes on autobahn. So I hate when people overtaking me driving 2mph faster than me.
@ Trust me, the last place where you want to be, is next to the truck when tire explodes . I had a blow out and huge chunk of tire flew across 3 lanes. That was the part with the tire thread, so big chunk.
@ yes and no. What I had was new tires and no retreads. It depends on a lot of things like, production flaws, debris on the road, air/tarmac temperature , air on the tires. Underinflated tires with heavy weight goes bang more often
@@furistasTedis - That's a lot of variables indeed. I was just thinking that the retread strips that get attached to the tire are so big, and I don't think they're quite as secure as a regular tire. So on average that sounds more dangerous in a relevant failure situation. Also, would you prefer to do ice-road trucking, or truck down Western Australia in a 62-wheel road train?
I would've liked the drafting test to include the fuel used by the truck. Either - it would use more as the car inside the low pressure is being partially pulled (sucked in) by the truck or - use less since the low-pressure size is smaller thus having less of a drag holding back the truck or - a little bit of both cancelling each other.
Whatever the numbers would be, it would be insignificant. Remember in terms of fuel consumption to weight a truck is way more fuel efficent than a car is. My truck can haul up to about 60 tonnes legally, and it does about 3.5 liters per 10 kilometers at that weight. It isn't even in the same galaxy compared to a average car.
I have seen a blown tire smash a car air conditioner straight out of the motor. It can do incredible damage, so the ability to kill someone is there, no doubt.
Why didn't they just get worn tires? I bet any trucking company would be happy to sell them. Most companies allow them to go pretty well beyond a mechanic's recommendation for wearing because of their enormous cost
Tridem rear inside tire, back axle, on a super b bridge blew at 100 k. Tread. Big pow and serious jerk on the rig and upon inspection the extra heavy mudflap hanger was driven into buddy tire cutting deeply. The flap no longer existed. Help 20 k away so attempt to shift hanger pipe with a 5' pinch bar and limp in just bent the bar. That is extreme energy and on a linear release only a fool could doubt it's lethality. Linear. A release when beside might injure but hardly be deadly. Upon replacing 4 tires the shop straightened the hanger bar by heating it red hot while other buddy used his longer pinch bar on the softened steel. Like I said, linear release every deadly.
I've always wondered if there's a difference between drafting (at a relatively safe distance) behind one big rig vs drafting behind a line of 3 or more rigs. In my mind, having several trucks right in a row might make a river of low pressure air that's actually moving in the direction of travel. This seems like it would be more beneficial, perhaps even when drafting at a greater distance from the truck. But I don't have the resources to test it. :(
The strips/alligators/belts we see on US hways is because DOT allows recaps on truck axles other than the two fronts. They delaminate/break and fall right off a tire, still holding its air. They will unwrap and fall behind the truck, and at best will have some speed (less than that of the truck) and fall right behind it, where if someone is tailgating will be also travelling at the same speed. So this never happens, unless a motorcyclist is tailgating a truck? So you never hear such accident because it doesn't happen. Belted/recapped tires don't explode, that is a myth, when the tire does explode from heat it doesn't shred immediately, it falls apart gradually down the road if the driver doesn't stop.
I remember as a 7 year old kid riding in the truck with my dad. It was a small Hino tip truck (6 ton I think) fully loaded with wheat. On our way to the silo's to deliver the wheat the inside tyre on the passengers side rear came apart, it didn't blow out as the tube was still inflated but the tyre came to bits. It made a really bad noise and dad said he saw small pieces of tread and wire bouncing down the road behind us like a shower of small black rocks, luckily no one was following us at the time. We had to pull over as some of the side wall wrapped around the axle and was smoking a lot. Dad cut away at it with his large pocket knife and a hacksaw blade that he found in the trucks tool kit, took about 40 minutes before we set off again. The tube stayed up all the way to the silo's and back home, round trip of about 50 km's. Not sure if the bits of tyre in this case could've killed someone as they were small pieces but it probably would have smashed a windscreen or made some dents in the grill.
I know a guy who lost a leg from a truck tire that failed. I don't know much about the circumstances, but it was off the truck and he was sitting on it eating lunch when it went. My best guess is that it was old and overpressured.
I think the ramping the car into the running trailer is much easier with an torque converter automatic too. It has way more 'give' to not stall out the engine or wreck the transmission. With a manual transmission, going grom 55mph to 2mph on the ramp, without taking decent run-up & clutch would probably stall the engine.
When I drove the Autobahn in the 90´s I did drafting very, very often. I creeped up on a truck and saved gas every time. I just was lucky they weren´t hitting the brake suddenly. That was my only hope- at the time all drivers were using the blinkers way before braking so I usually had all the time in the world to react. But yeah, it works.
@@tappajaav Or the drivers who get into the same accident you cause when the collision occurs. Drafting and "shoving" makes me so angry, I can't even breathe without exhaling in curse-words! Selfish pr i cks, who do that!
I would have been interested in seeing how that truck tyre acted under 12 tones of pressure at 100km per hour, once it had warmed up. Though more often than not a trailer tyre will throw a tread off before it will blow out.
I think the exploding tire was a thing more in the days of the split rim which has been illegal almost everywhere for quite awhile. If MB could dig up a few in a scrap yard and test those under different conditions that could be interesting and dramatic.
Well, for AWD, your front wheels would be going almost walking pace (the speed difference between the truck and the car) while your rear wheels would be going 55 mph... I am not sure if it was smart...
Too many people hang out for too long alongside a big truck. Most likely if you hide in his or her blind spot you're either gonna get it even the truck changes lanes or if a gust of wind either moves the rig or the passenger car under the trailers wheels. I HATE being a passenger when the driver camps out next to semis and i have to stare down those big tires.
Top speed reached on a bicycle has been achieved the same way, a hood behind a van and the cyclist with enormous gearing reaching amazing speeds, since above 25mph most of the effort is against the wind not friction
The piece of the truck wheel that decapitates you is the steel rimlock, when it accidentally becomes dislodged, but I'm not sure Mythbusters can do that with a shotgun even with 12gage solids.
i was watchin this one real close, cos i had a truck tire explode literally within a couple car lengths of me once. i was overtaking a truck, heard an enormous bang and spray of air and gravel and it took me a couple seconds to realise that that tire just in front of me just exploded...suffice to say yeah i backed right off and let the truck pull over...bloody scary...seeing this episode really shows how close i came to a dirt nap
I've seen that sort of thing fly off trucks more than once. thankfully it ususally doesn't fly in huge chunks and doesn't go too far. I think being on the road changes directory a bit differently from driving on another set of wheels as well.
Very sad, he had such a nice personality not too eccentric, always cool robotics and interesting electronics stuff in their segment. There are a few details on the surgeries they performed to save his life. I won't copy them here because it's a bit depressing, but he went from having unusual migraines to be taken off life support in just 3 days. That 's the reality of brain aneurysms.
a dark night with almost or no moon, on an unlit road with only your own headlights, riding a motor bike, if you hit a black piece of truck tire on the road and do a cart wheel only bad things will happen...
wait, is this how a truck tire actually explodes on the highway? not actually from the air pressure, but from disintegration and the centrifugal forces?
Worn out tire frame, fuck up in resurfacing, too little pressure causing heating from flexing combined with centrifugal forces and maybe bump in the road. All those are reasons that can cause tire failing. Seen many times side walls just disappearing and leaving the tread circle. Combine this with frozen temps so tire goes up and down on the heat circle and i'm no longer wondering why there is so many blown truck tires on side of the road...
That wasn't the reason. I wonder why they didn't bother asking NASA about it since they did the scale model testing there anyway. The reason is that this zone is where there's a lot of turbulence that actually pushed the car back. In NASCAR when the car in the back gets very very close to the front, the turbulence that exists between them (coming mostly from the bottom) actually pushes the car in the front. And that's why drafting works even without bumpdrafting. The sweetspot is also the safest distance, provided you are paying 100% attention. Of course even though you would be saving gas money, you risk overheating your engine, and that will cost a LOT to repair.
Good video. There's 2 problems with your tire test. The wheels of the folklore are the old 10.00x20 split rim withe the locking ring. You're definitely on the right track when you were running the truck tread through the 2 tires. For that real life scenario you should have used a recap tire. Be nice to see this again with those scenarios. 30 years on the road...just my 2 cents.
Those split rims when failing are powerful enough to behead just from ring alone from normal tire pressure. If it was not assembled correctly or locking ring is rusted out, that thing will come apart and if there is pressure in tire results for anyone being in general front vicinity are BAD. Another would be tire frame that has gone too many resurfacings, the frame it self failing, specially if that happens behind the outer wheel, followed by outer side wall failing.
So it's cool that they did Knight Rider but I remember seeing this episode new and thinking it was a bit of a nothing burger. They did the ramp trick on every episode of Knight Rider with no special effects so obviously it wasn't a myth😅 😅
I really hate it when the mythbusters, my heroes, get a myth totally wrong. It is truck split rims that will kill you, when the rim separates from the wheel. Everyone knew this even back then, it was no secret. When we inflated split rim wheels after a tyre replacement, we always did it with the tyre in a steel cage because the high pressures being applied could cause the rim which weighs many kg to separate. People have been cut in three pieces by spit rims. Some years ago I heard about a fire fighter who was killed in a factory fire when he approached a forklift truck with split rims and tyres on fire. It failed and killed him instantly.
Crashing into a Truck is dangerous if there is a high speed difference at the crash-point of the two vehicles. So you have to be far enough away to brake on your own, or be close enough that the truck bracking hasn't got any room to slow down siginificantly before the crash. So my tip is to add a hard bumber and just slighly hit the truck. It has both fuel savings and if the truck brakes hard it also immeadiately brakes your car. So the 2 feet test is actually probably the safest.
My thoughts exactly closer is safer providing nothing is thrown by the tires. As for the tire myth it depends on the exact blow out. If you just let the air out it is really safe, if the casing fails and 100lb piece of rubber flaps like a giant mace I have personally seen steel parts tor off the truck. Most of these retread blow outs happen on new caps on damaged casings, you can't detect all damage to a casing best to use your own not to buy from unknown source. That's why the retreads you see laying on the road all look brand new. If you run a tire low air you can seriously damage it also
didn't this myth refer to 2 piece rims? "Split rims are a 2 piece construction which allowed side of the road tire changes for older vehicles. Very dangerous compared to modern designs since the rim flange can separate explosively when inflated if not seated properly."
Jamie only seems to smile when there's a high chance of death or serious bodily harm to Adam
"I always enjoy seeing Adam in pain." -- James Hyneman
Or in the presence of animals. Look at his face when they had that rattlesnake.
I used to be a forklift operator, and at 11:40 I instinctively flinched seeing Adam Savage standing under the raised fork tines carrying the big rig. That's how you get yelled at by the yard manager lol
yes he never was smart
That’s what I thought
The same thing was done with three Mini Coopers in the original 1969 crime-caper film The Italian job. The difference was that they were all driven one after another into the back of a Harrington Legionnaire with all the seats taken out and a metal barrier put in to protect the driver. There were two individual wheel ramps, and the minis run into the converted coach, one after another. They did hit each other a bit and the steel barrier was pushed forwards, along with the driver, but a few inches. The Minis were FWD which might have helped a bit in getting the timing to back off the power at the right moment. The coach was run at 85 kph (53mph), the minis at 115 kph (72 mph).
this should be a ad for tiremakers because they really tortured that tire and it really held up great.
Tire won’t explode for piercing it, well, very tiny chance. There are a lot of factors like under/ over inflated tyre working on road, air temperature, but when it goes boom, trust me, you don’t want to be anywhere near it. Short RUclips search truck tyre explosion would give you an idea :)
The tread looked good. Could have been new without the usual fatigue after 1000's of k's.
@@Goalsplus and more important, friction with a tarmac plays a huge role too.
This still is amazing enterteinment! Cheers to everyone and anyone that was a part of the best TV Show ever made.
Nope it's amazing science and we can use it in daily life.
Some, yes.@@nishant54 most is enterteinment and food for thought. And that's plenty. That's why "Supertasks" by VSauce is the most important video ever made... it explains why even the foolish thoughts and experiments are important.
best show was scrapheap challenge.
I watched some, and don't agree. Sorry.@@AlmightyAlbatroz
Thank you!
MYTHBUSTERS! This was my favorite thing to watch growing up
Same here man
Used to ride a motorcycle close behind trucks to keep dry in the rain. Only problem is the motor overheats without air passing through the radiator.
Used to do this too on my unfaired RD350. Took all the wind pressure off.
The smaller scale test was already done with Mini's in the original Italian job film.
With Front wheel drive being a significant difference of course.
Excellent show, and episode!
As a truck driver it’s a one in a million shot a blown tyre damages a passing vehicle. It’s the failed tyre throwing debris as it rotates that does the main damage. Just like you see here.
I agree. Most trailer tires are retreads, so I would assume that it would be the retread coming off that might do damage. I've often heard the debris on the highway referred to as 'gators', not that most people care enough to give them a name. I've had my Class 1 (Alberta semi truck license) for 22 years, for what it's worth.
Afterthought: it wouldn't surprise me if retreaded tires are subject to regional laws. I wouldn't be surprised if there are many jurisdictions that don't even allow retreads to be run.
@@Matthew-h6e in the netherlands you can only retread 1 time after that the tire must be replaced
Totally agree specially if a brake fails and not noticed,locked on. The heat transfered to tire, expanding its contents.
And when they go, its like a small carton of hho been ignited, not a shotgun noise, its scary loud.
Personal expirience
I've been hit with debris through my open driver's window. It scared me but I didn't lose my head.
Maybe for your stupid British tires but we use steel in American tires.
15:49 Grant isn't gone, he's deep under cover!
for a motorcycle drafting behind a big-rig even at like 30+ meters away is easily doable and helps to eliminate a lot of turbulent air... I do it for long-hauls if I can manage it, get like 80mpg on avg.. and being a motorcycle I will out-brake it every time by a VERY long way.
Maybe one of my favorite episodes... and not just because I recently started binging Knightrider again... Man, that show takes me back something fierce.|
Kit mounting The Rook never struck me as implausible, neither... if its a rear-wheel drive all you need to do is put her from Drive to Neut as as soon as you hit the Ramp... and KITT was definitely smart _and fast_ enough to do that on his own.
Front-wheel drive? even easier; just a magnetic relay that disconnects the clutch.
Dude, where can Knightrider be accessed these days? I'm too young to have been able to watch it in its prime, but really wanna see it for myself
@@atlehassum1492 i found a dvd box set at walmart last year, as i couldn't easily find it online for free. but it's getting harder to find dvd players, or laptops/pc's with a dvd drive, or even gaming consoles that will play dvd's. if you really want to watch it online, it looks like google and apple have episodes to "rent"
i cackled when jamie rode the car out of the truck hahaha
Loving that the M.B. dynamometer was an IDI Ford. Rad
RIP Grant
that was the first episode that I randomly downloaded somewhere in summer of 2007. Then I started from season 1 episode 1 a bit later and watched "weekly" until the very last episode.
The car behind the truck with 94% drag reduction makes sense.. as the truck moves through the air, there’s a literal negative pressure zone behind the truck a trailer.. it’s almost as if you’re moving 50 mph through a vacuum because of the negative pressure zone
that's what they said on the show, dude.
That makes sense
Dead Zone a protected area where the oncoming smoke doesn't reach protecting
any following car from drag smoke was gathering behind the truck which proves to us that there is a low pressure area
what we're going to do now is take a car in the same scale as the truck attach it to a force gauge and then see what kind
of effect that low pressure has on the car but just before that the team first needs a baseline so the truck is removed
from the track to see what the force of the oncoming wind is like on the car alone
with the smoke off it may look like nothing's happening but the wind is roaring past the car at over 50 miles
per hour and Grant gets a reading okay so it looks like we got a good Baseline
definitely 0.142 pounds and that is just the wind on the car alone so that's the
control the question now is will this figure reduce with a semi shielding the
Airstream we're now full seven car lengths away do we have any drag whatsoever we have 21
drag reduction are you serious yeah wow for Carrie that was the wow factor so
how about when the car gets dangerously close first they wind the truck in to
decrease the distance to five inches or ten feet If This Were full scale all
right so we're at 10 feet that's a 60 reduction in drag [Music]
all right we're at six feet away from the truck ridiculous I don't think I'd
want to drive that close to the back of a truck let me tell you you might want to reconsider 80 reduction in drag
you're not definitely Drive all right let's go to two feet what are
we reading you know what's crazy we're reading 93 reduction in drag are you
serious yeah it's an astounding result at two feet drag is reduced almost
Grant was king of the nerds and left us too soon 🥲
I didn't know he was dead... damn... what a gut punch. :(
❤
american healthcare does that to a person who are not rich enough, a real shame.
Unfortunately he passed in 2020 from an aneurysm 😢 @TheFounderUtopia
It may Help UR fuel milage...but I've heard Truck Drivers say that, That drag…..Hurts THEIRS.
And like they said...DON'T follow up SO close to an 18 wheeler...if they have to slam on their brakes! UR IN 4 TROUBLE!
never getting "tired" of the Mythbusters
I've witnessed an actual semi truck tire blowout on i80 somewhere around Omaha, truck was going at least 80MPH. Let's just say I was happy to be a few hundred feet behind. Don't know if it would have been enough to behead someone, but it went up in a big cloud of smoke (initially thought the truck had exploded) with big chunk of rubbers all over the place. Quite humbling.
I Drive a truck for a living, the worst place you can be is behind a truck when a tire blows, here is Aussie land people seem to think that sitting behind a truck in kangaroo country is a way to stop yourself from hitting one with your car, when in fact the truck is like a honey badger, don't give to shits when don't even slow done.. just bonk the bull bar rolls it straight under the truck, the it flies out the back.. or goes under the wheels... you get the picture
MB is the greatest show of all time.
all time so far.
Who knows if there will be an even better show in the future with a similar format ?
I don’t tail gate trucks/Lorrie’s but even at a safe distance my MPG goes up by 5-8 more. Even with normal cars and following the 2 second rule will improve your MPG.
28:23 This episode first aired four years before Game Theory's first video, but the phrase will still be MatPat's in my mind.
The researcher on the wind tunnel is named "Bruce Storms", I love Nominative Determinism
Like insurance agent Justin Case and weatherman Storm Fields? 😁
I love how the drafting part is basically just them telling you over and over not to do it.
With good reason. If that truck must emergency brake you'll hit something that empty weigh more than ten times your car. No nickle and dyme is worth your life.
@@grejsancoprative absolutely!
The usual cause of tire failure is heat. This can be caused by under inflation, brakes dragging or bearing failure. Most of the time, the tire disintegrates spreading chunks of flying rubber. Other times, the tire can catch fire. It's not pretty.
And now thanks to Mythbusters I can not pass a truck on the highway without thinking about my head getting chopped off. Thanks for the paranoia Mythbusters! It helps a lot 😀
Thanks for another upload of full episode! 🎉
they could have uploaded in better quality though. this is horribly low res
13:26 as a Trucker I can confirm, when the tyre explodes, parts of tire manages to fly over 3 lanes on autobahn. So I hate when people overtaking me driving 2mph faster than me.
Do bits of tyre also go sideways then it seems
@ Trust me, the last place where you want to be, is next to the truck when tire explodes . I had a blow out and huge chunk of tire flew across 3 lanes. That was the part with the tire thread, so big chunk.
@@furistasTedis - That's wild. I imagine retreads would generally have far larger strips of rubber fly off than with regular tires right?
@ yes and no. What I had was new tires and no retreads. It depends on a lot of things like, production flaws, debris on the road, air/tarmac temperature , air on the tires. Underinflated tires with heavy weight goes bang more often
@@furistasTedis - That's a lot of variables indeed. I was just thinking that the retread strips that get attached to the tire are so big, and I don't think they're quite as secure as a regular tire. So on average that sounds more dangerous in a relevant failure situation.
Also, would you prefer to do ice-road trucking, or truck down Western Australia in a 62-wheel road train?
I would've liked the drafting test to include the fuel used by the truck.
Either
- it would use more as the car inside the low pressure is being partially pulled (sucked in) by the truck or
- use less since the low-pressure size is smaller thus having less of a drag holding back the truck or
- a little bit of both cancelling each other.
Conservation of energy means the prime mover's mpg would decrease.
It is hauling an extra parasitic load.
Physics does not lie.
Actually i think that the fuel usage of the truck will also decrease, because the car behind it is stopping the air vortices from forming
Whatever the numbers would be, it would be insignificant. Remember in terms of fuel consumption to weight a truck is way more fuel efficent than a car is. My truck can haul up to about 60 tonnes legally, and it does about 3.5 liters per 10 kilometers at that weight. It isn't even in the same galaxy compared to a average car.
The idea of drafting airplanes over the Atlantic is being studied by EASA and Airbus. The reports are about a 5% savings in fuel.
I have seen a blown tire smash a car air conditioner straight out of the motor. It can do incredible damage, so the ability to kill someone is there, no doubt.
Why didn't they just get worn tires? I bet any trucking company would be happy to sell them. Most companies allow them to go pretty well beyond a mechanic's recommendation for wearing because of their enormous cost
Tridem rear inside tire, back axle, on a super b bridge blew at 100 k. Tread. Big pow and serious jerk on the rig and upon inspection the extra heavy mudflap hanger was driven into buddy tire cutting deeply. The flap no longer existed. Help 20 k away so attempt to shift hanger pipe with a 5' pinch bar and limp in just bent the bar. That is extreme energy and on a linear release only a fool could doubt it's lethality. Linear. A release when beside might injure but hardly be deadly. Upon replacing 4 tires the shop straightened the hanger bar by heating it red hot while other buddy used his longer pinch bar on the softened steel. Like I said, linear release every deadly.
It is great that the wind measure guy's name is Bruce Storms.
The narrator's lines and lines of puns never ends
I've always wondered if there's a difference between drafting (at a relatively safe distance) behind one big rig vs drafting behind a line of 3 or more rigs.
In my mind, having several trucks right in a row might make a river of low pressure air that's actually moving in the direction of travel. This seems like it would be more beneficial, perhaps even when drafting at a greater distance from the truck.
But I don't have the resources to test it. :(
The strips/alligators/belts we see on US hways is because DOT allows recaps on truck axles other than the two fronts. They delaminate/break and fall right off a tire, still holding its air. They will unwrap and fall behind the truck, and at best will have some speed (less than that of the truck) and fall right behind it, where if someone is tailgating will be also travelling at the same speed. So this never happens, unless a motorcyclist is tailgating a truck?
So you never hear such accident because it doesn't happen. Belted/recapped tires don't explode, that is a myth, when the tire does explode from heat it doesn't shred immediately, it falls apart gradually down the road if the driver doesn't stop.
The real myth about the Knight Rider Semi is not how he could get into the truck, rather how he could get out of the car inside the truck.
The roof lifted up if you remember so crawl out of the top.
Actually... what happens to the car's transmission when backing out at 5 mph reverse suddenly becomes 55 mph forward?
Gonna need a manual tranny and coast out with the clutch released and then drop it when on the road. But wasnt K.I.T.T. an automatic?
@@williamscavone722 I guess it set on Neutral when rolling down the ramp and then switches to Forward D?
The big rig in the show must be like the TARDIS from Dr. Who, bigger on the inside than the outside 🤷♂️
I remember as a 7 year old kid riding in the truck with my dad. It was a small Hino tip truck (6 ton I think) fully loaded with wheat. On our way to the silo's to deliver the wheat the inside tyre on the passengers side rear came apart, it didn't blow out as the tube was still inflated but the tyre came to bits. It made a really bad noise and dad said he saw small pieces of tread and wire bouncing down the road behind us like a shower of small black rocks, luckily no one was following us at the time. We had to pull over as some of the side wall wrapped around the axle and was smoking a lot. Dad cut away at it with his large pocket knife and a hacksaw blade that he found in the trucks tool kit, took about 40 minutes before we set off again. The tube stayed up all the way to the silo's and back home, round trip of about 50 km's. Not sure if the bits of tyre in this case could've killed someone as they were small pieces but it probably would have smashed a windscreen or made some dents in the grill.
This episode was the best advert for that truck ever!
17:03 I assume this guy started as Shatner’s stunt double? Amazing if true.
I know a guy who lost a leg from a truck tire that failed. I don't know much about the circumstances, but it was off the truck and he was sitting on it eating lunch when it went. My best guess is that it was old and overpressured.
Most important rule. In a car, if you mess with a truck, you lose. Period.
I think the ramping the car into the running trailer is much easier with an torque converter automatic too.
It has way more 'give' to not stall out the engine or wreck the transmission.
With a manual transmission, going grom 55mph to 2mph on the ramp, without taking decent run-up & clutch would probably stall the engine.
Some big rig energy right here.
When I drove the Autobahn in the 90´s I did drafting very, very often. I creeped up on a truck and saved gas every time. I just was lucky they weren´t hitting the brake suddenly. That was my only hope- at the time all drivers were using the blinkers way before braking so I usually had all the time in the world to react.
But yeah, it works.
How much fuel did you save roughly?
@@smOOdiebOOdie Not enough to justify crippling yourself or your car in case the truck suddenly slows down
@@tappajaav Or the drivers who get into the same accident you cause when the collision occurs. Drafting and "shoving" makes me so angry, I can't even breathe without exhaling in curse-words! Selfish pr i cks, who do that!
I would have been interested in seeing how that truck tyre acted under 12 tones of pressure at 100km per hour, once it had warmed up.
Though more often than not a trailer tyre will throw a tread off before it will blow out.
I think the exploding tire was a thing more in the days of the split rim which has been illegal almost everywhere for quite awhile. If MB could dig up a few in a scrap yard and test those under different conditions that could be interesting and dramatic.
Would have liked them to try the ramp into the truck with FWD and AWD cars too just to see if it was any different
Well, for AWD, your front wheels would be going almost walking pace (the speed difference between the truck and the car) while your rear wheels would be going 55 mph... I am not sure if it was smart...
@@noldo3837 logically yes. But wouldn’t you like to see it happen?
Behind the scenes, the build team's like, "Aww, we don't get the Knight Rider myth?"
Too many people hang out for too long alongside a big truck. Most likely if you hide in his or her blind spot you're either gonna get it even the truck changes lanes or if a gust of wind either moves the rig or the passenger car under the trailers wheels. I HATE being a passenger when the driver camps out next to semis and i have to stare down those big tires.
Top speed reached on a bicycle has been achieved the same way, a hood behind a van and the cyclist with enormous gearing reaching amazing speeds, since above 25mph most of the effort is against the wind not friction
The piece of the truck wheel that decapitates you is the steel rimlock, when it accidentally becomes dislodged, but I'm not sure Mythbusters can do that with a shotgun even with 12gage solids.
Any truck wheel part, large enough, can decapitates. Even part of rim can fly off.
I knew someone who died in a truck-yard, overinflating one of these tyres, which exploded.
21:05 Can we just take a moment to appreciate their use of old timey file footage and silly cartoon sound effects.
Best entertainment around!
Does anyone out there know if one could find the series in physical form? Mythbusters should not become lost media.
I just checked amazon and it's available on DVD and BD.
@@bghoody5665 You are legendary! Thanks so much!
i was watchin this one real close, cos i had a truck tire explode literally within a couple car lengths of me once. i was overtaking a truck, heard an enormous bang and spray of air and gravel and it took me a couple seconds to realise that that tire just in front of me just exploded...suffice to say yeah i backed right off and let the truck pull over...bloody scary...seeing this episode really shows how close i came to a dirt nap
I've seen that sort of thing fly off trucks more than once. thankfully it ususally doesn't fly in huge chunks and doesn't go too far. I think being on the road changes directory a bit differently from driving on another set of wheels as well.
Drafting is a thing. Racing has known this for years. You can gain enough peddle to make a pass with identical cars. Nascar relies on drafting.
I don't care if, in this reality, Jamie and Adam are not best friends.. in my world they are 😂😂
Your raw power is frightening
They are work friends. They don't spend their free time together but work well together.
47:16 Yea that would leave someone rather not well off.
I would never cut the Tyre if over inflating, it would give away anyway from overinflating
14:23 : when you heard Christmas is canceled
I really amused how many different skills they have 😮
Ŕ.iI.P. Grant Imahara, propbuilder of Star War 49:00 s, the Matrix and so much more geeky robotics and overall sympathatic human, only turned 49.
Very sad, he had such a nice personality
not too eccentric, always cool robotics and interesting electronics stuff in their segment.
There are a few details on the surgeries they performed to save his life. I won't copy them here because it's a bit depressing, but he went from having unusual migraines to be taken off life support in just 3 days.
That 's the reality of brain aneurysms.
a dark night with almost or no moon, on an unlit road with only your own headlights, riding a motor bike, if you hit a black piece of truck tire on the road and do a cart wheel only bad things will happen...
How did you released parking brake on the semi trailer ???????
15:08 Resilient, yes.. but.. they are spinning 0 load on it... pressure inside without any load on it.. probably is not enough for damage.
31:42 foreshadowing with an epic goodbye
1:36 they're all sick of Adam's shit but can't say anything because they have a sweet job that they don't want to lose.
wait, is this how a truck tire actually explodes on the highway? not actually from the air pressure, but from disintegration and the centrifugal forces?
Worn out tire frame, fuck up in resurfacing, too little pressure causing heating from flexing combined with centrifugal forces and maybe bump in the road. All those are reasons that can cause tire failing. Seen many times side walls just disappearing and leaving the tread circle. Combine this with frozen temps so tire goes up and down on the heat circle and i'm no longer wondering why there is so many blown truck tires on side of the road...
The black pete and blue Camero clips are from black dog, a movie i think Jamie helped with
That wasn't the reason. I wonder why they didn't bother asking NASA about it since they did the scale model testing there anyway.
The reason is that this zone is where there's a lot of turbulence that actually pushed the car back.
In NASCAR when the car in the back gets very very close to the front, the turbulence that exists between them (coming mostly from the bottom) actually pushes the car in the front. And that's why drafting works even without bumpdrafting.
The sweetspot is also the safest distance, provided you are paying 100% attention. Of course even though you would be saving gas money, you risk overheating your engine, and that will cost a LOT to repair.
Screen used KITT, semi, and trailer are all in one place now. Think the Mythbusters would be up testing the ramp on original equipment?
Miss this show alot
Weight, the major missing component to mass tire failure is weight. It needs to be under a lot of LOAD.
Unless that pickup had a locking differential, did you prevent the RH pickup wheel from rotating..?
Good video. There's 2 problems with your tire test. The wheels of the folklore are the old 10.00x20 split rim withe the locking ring.
You're definitely on the right track when you were running the truck tread through the 2 tires. For that real life scenario you should have used a recap tire. Be nice to see this again with those scenarios.
30 years on the road...just my 2 cents.
Those split rims when failing are powerful enough to behead just from ring alone from normal tire pressure. If it was not assembled correctly or locking ring is rusted out, that thing will come apart and if there is pressure in tire results for anyone being in general front vicinity are BAD. Another would be tire frame that has gone too many resurfacings, the frame it self failing, specially if that happens behind the outer wheel, followed by outer side wall failing.
Split rims is known to kill people. The myth is tyre blowout.
So it's cool that they did Knight Rider but I remember seeing this episode new and thinking it was a bit of a nothing burger.
They did the ramp trick on every episode of Knight Rider with no special effects so obviously it wasn't a myth😅 😅
Driving 20 fret behind the truck at 90 kmph is what we do in Romania on a daily basis 😂😂
saw also more insane people on the road.. also truck drivers who where that close, that i wouldn't be able to walk between the gap..
Needed to heat the truck tire rim itself. Like a stuck brake shoe. Red hot. Then watch a tire blow.
Hey thanks guy !
I learned to draft semi's as a child from this episode ahah
I really hate it when the mythbusters, my heroes, get a myth totally wrong. It is truck split rims that will kill you, when the rim separates from the wheel. Everyone knew this even back then, it was no secret. When we inflated split rim wheels after a tyre replacement, we always did it with the tyre in a steel cage because the high pressures being applied could cause the rim which weighs many kg to separate. People have been cut in three pieces by spit rims. Some years ago I heard about a fire fighter who was killed in a factory fire when he approached a forklift truck with split rims and tyres on fire. It failed and killed him instantly.
You mean "widowmaker" wheels?
And if the rim fails, and blows. It has enough force to bend the cage all to hell.
@@iblockpuncheswithmyface1490 these causes were main reason that in US now U can't drive trucks with these rims...
@@PitBull51091 Even Dayton rims are becoming rare up here in Canada.
That's not a myth though, that's a known issue, they are testing a myth of something more far fetched
Only 480p?
What is the bike beside the truck, I love it.
"Danger zones" a usual distance on overused highway with just 2 lines on highway in Europe..
Crashing into a Truck is dangerous if there is a high speed difference at the crash-point of the two vehicles. So you have to be far enough away to brake on your own, or be close enough that the truck bracking hasn't got any room to slow down siginificantly before the crash. So my tip is to add a hard bumber and just slighly hit the truck. It has both fuel savings and if the truck brakes hard it also immeadiately brakes your car. So the 2 feet test is actually probably the safest.
My thoughts exactly closer is safer providing nothing is thrown by the tires. As for the tire myth it depends on the exact blow out. If you just let the air out it is really safe, if the casing fails and 100lb piece of rubber flaps like a giant mace I have personally seen steel parts tor off the truck. Most of these retread blow outs happen on new caps on damaged casings, you can't detect all damage to a casing best to use your own not to buy from unknown source. That's why the retreads you see laying on the road all look brand new. If you run a tire low air you can seriously damage it also
Install clamps that grab the truck and form a train and turn off your engine. 100% less fuel consumption guaranteed.
Rip Grant...
Remould/treaded tyres delaminating are scary as.
❤❤❤ Butiful thx
There are still some differences that I don’t think they thought of that’s if the car is back or right beside or even behind the trailer
#Proxxon ja geil, ich steh ja auf die Firma. Super, dass ihr den Drehmo nochmal getestet habt. 👍
Nice, but 480p sort of belong in the previous millennium.
Grant was awesome in this episode....rip Grant.
didn't this myth refer to 2 piece rims?
"Split rims are a 2 piece construction which allowed side of the road tire changes for older vehicles. Very dangerous compared to modern designs since the rim flange can separate explosively when inflated if not seated properly."
awesome
There's absolutely no way on that back tire you can tell when it's empty
I miss Grant. RIP
17:29 average I35 driver