Sorting out the causes of tire blowouts, flats: work with experienced legal counsel

In our last post, we commented on the importance of vehicle maintenance in highway safety and the potential role failure to maintain a vehicle can play in personal injury litigation. Tire maintenance, as we noted, is an importance aspect of maintaining a properly working vehicle. One of the potential results of improper tire maintenance is a tire blowout or flat tire.

Tire blowouts and flats are actually a more common occurrence than many people might initially assume, and they can cause serious accidents to occur. The reasons why a blowout or a flat occur can be complex, though, and sorting out the real causes requires careful investigation of the evidence.

A blowout or flat could be a result of environmental factors, such as hitting a pothole or driving on deteriorated road edges. It could also, in some cases, be connected to driver-related factors such as the driver’s level of driving experience, experience with the vehicle; or whether he or she was engaging in aggressive driving or speeding. Factors specific to the vehicle can also play a part in tire blowouts or flats, such as tire pressure, tread depth, pre-crash damage to the tire, whether or not a tire pressure monitoring system is in use in the vehicle, and so on.

One important point for motor vehicle accident victims to understand is that accidents which initially appear to be the result of failure to engage in proper tire maintenance can sometimes actually involve defective design, manufacture, or installation or tires.

In our next post, we’ll say a bit about the importance of gathering evidence in motor vehicle accident cases, specifically evidence related to tire issues.