An eyewitness video of the accident is going viral.
Illinois resident Mz. Deanna Smith caught the shocking moment earlier yesterday (May 18,2021) when a rogue wheel, rolling down I-80 near Gary, Indiana, collided with a Toyota Rav-4 driving in the same lane.
Since it was night, with limited visibility and the tire almost invisible to oncoming traffic, the Toyota Rav-4 could do little to avoid it.The Rav-4 driver hits the wheel head on and drives over it in its upright position causing the Rav-4 to flip twice as the tire shot out the back. The Rav-4 lands on all four tires. The wheel rolls on, unperturbed by a whole crossover driving on top of it.
Prior to the Rav-4, at least one driver and an entire semi-truck pass, avoiding the wheel.
Check out the viral video reposted below! Smith’s original video is linked here.
A quote from Deanna Smith posted on Fox 32 Chicago reads,
Currently, Smith’s video has almost 1.4 million views, 10,000 comments, and close to 100,000 shares. I’ve also seen this video reposted all over Instagram, Twitter, and presumably, other social media platforms.
Smith posted up this update on the condition of the driver earlier today.
As of this writing, there’s little concrete information on what caused the wheel to roll unattended,.
A quick inspection of this video and it looks like one of those trailer tires found on 18-wheelers. According to Truckinginfo.com, trailer wheels that fly off are called “Wheel off” incidents. Typically, this happens because of improper torquing of lug nuts and inspection of work after wheel or tire repairs.
“…final fastener torque must be measured with a calibrated torque wrench.“
If that’s the case, there’s probably a semi-truck driver that found out they’re missing a whole wheel.
Thankfully, no one was seriously injured or hurt. It could’ve turned out a lot worse.
Semi drivers and repair technicians, take this as a cautionary tale to double-check those lug nuts.
And, for drivers, this is why you need to stay vigilant at all times even on traffic-free roads in the middle of the night. No one ever expects to see a wheel just rolling on its own in your lane.
