You’ve probably seen the shredded tire treads scattered along the highway. Those aren’t just road debris. They’re evidence of tire blowouts on commercial trucks, and they happen far more often than they should. When an 18-wheeler loses a tire at highway speed, it’s not like when your car gets a flat. These trucks weigh up to 80,000 pounds. A sudden blowout means the driver can lose control in an instant, and everyone nearby is in danger.
What Actually Causes These Failures
We’ve handled enough of these cases to tell you there’s usually a pattern. Sometimes it’s one thing. Often, it’s several factors coming together. Here’s what we typically find:
- The company didn’t maintain the tires properly
- They loaded too much cargo on the truck
- The tread was worn down, and nobody replaced it
- There was a defect in how the tire was made
- Something on the road caused damage
- The tires weren’t inflated correctly
- Heat built up from driving too long without breaks
Trucking companies are supposed to maintain their vehicles. That’s not optional. Regular inspections, tire rotations, and replacements when needed. But some fleet managers decide that saving money matters more than safety, and that’s when people get hurt.
When A Tire Explodes
The driver can lose control almost immediately. Maybe the truck veers into another lane. Maybe it jackknifes across multiple lanes of traffic. Sometimes the whole rig rolls over. The tire pieces become projectiles flying at other cars. Even the most experienced truck drivers struggle to keep control when a tire blows, especially if it’s on the rear axles where most of these failures happen. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has rules about maintenance schedules, but having rules and following them are two different things. When companies ignore those regulations, we can hold them accountable.
Who’s Actually Responsible
This is where it can get complicated, because blame doesn’t always land on just one party. Marsh | Rickard | Bryan, LLC has handled plenty of these cases. We know how to figure out who’s liable, and it might be more than one person or company. The trucking company is responsible if they didn’t maintain their equipment or if they pressured drivers to keep moving on unsafe tires. If the tire was defective, then the manufacturer may be liable. Did the loading company put too much weight on the truck? They might share the blame, too. We will dig into everything. Maintenance records, driver logs, cargo weights, and the tire itself.
The Problem With Defective Tires
Not every blowout comes from poor maintenance, sometimes a tire was flawed from the start.
Internal structural problems, bonding issues between the layers, and cheap materials that shouldn’t have been used. You can’t see these defects just by looking at the tire. It seems fine until suddenly it isn’t. These product liability cases work differently from negligence claims. Different legal strategy entirely. Then there’s the retreading issue. Retreading tires is legal. It’s common in trucking. But if the retreading process isn’t done right, you get weak spots that separate and cause blowouts. Companies doing the retreading have to follow specific procedures, but not all of them do.
After The Crash Happens
These accidents cause serious injuries. High-speed collisions, rollovers, and multiple vehicles are involved. The medical bills start piling up fast, and a lot of victims can’t work for months. Some never fully recover from their injuries. Alabama law provides an avenue to seek justice and compensation. Medical expenses, lost income, property damage, pain, and suffering can be obtained in injury cases. But you’re going up against trucking companies with deep pockets and insurance carriers who do this professionally. They have lawyers on retainer who defend these cases all day long.
Why Time Matters
Evidence vanishes quickly after these accidents, and maintenance records have a way of disappearing. That’s why you need to talk to a Birmingham truck accident lawyer right away. We need to preserve that evidence before it’s gone. Our investigators will examine the scene and photograph everything. We’ll get the truck’s black box data. Those maintenance records will tell us if the company actually followed its inspection schedule. Driver logs show whether fatigue played a role or if the company was pushing unrealistic timelines. Every piece matters when we’re building your case.
What To Do Next
If a truck tire failure caused your accident, or if someone you love got hurt in one of these crashes, you deserve compensation for what happened. These cases involve federal regulations, multiple insurance policies, and companies with lawyers whose whole job is paying out as little as possible. Contact a Birmingham truck accident lawyer at Marsh, Rickard and Bryan law firm, and we’ll talk about what happened and what we can do about it.
