Runaway Truck Tire Smashes into Jeep Wrangler Unlimited

 

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Bruhhhhh💀💀💀💀💀💀 ever seen death rolling down the highway!!!! #fail #truck #damn #accident #finaldestination #epicfail

A post shared by iamtaiboogie (@iamtaiboogie) on Jul 25, 2019 at 9:25am PDT

This runaway wheel/tire combo did a number on the front end of the Jeep JKU, but it didn’t seriously injure anyone in the vehicle.

Think back to when you first started driving. You might’ve started off in your neighborhood and stuck to local roads for a while before you attempted driving at 70 mph on the highway. If you did, we can’t blame you. Highways can be dangerous. Some drivers go way too fast. Others are distracted by things they shouldn’t be doing while they’re driving. Then there are those who fall into both groups. And don’t forget about all of the other potential hazards, such as debris. That’s perilous enough when it’s standing still. As this video of a runaway wheel/tire shows, road debris gets even more threatening when it’s moving.

The footage opens with a male driver and a passenger traveling down the left lane of Route 440 in Edison, New Jersey, according to NBC News. They suddenly see a wheel/tire bouncing and rolling forward at a high rate of speed between the middle and far-right lanes. Soon after they pull closer to it, it begins to veer left.

It crosses over every lane and heads toward the median dividing the man and his passenger from travelers heading the opposite direction. Instead of hitting the concrete wall and wobbling to a stop, the dangerous hunk of metal and rubber flies up and onto the top of the barrier and continues to roll forward. Each time it bounces, the driver lets out a nervous “Oh.” Clearly, the journey is not going to end well.

It comes to an explosive end when it slams into a JK Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. The front end of the rig and the tire collide in a fireworks show of smashed rubber and bent metal.

According to NBC News, John Rice, a police officer in Piscataway, New Jersey, was following behind his wife and three children in a vehicle ahead when the wheel/tire hit his Jeep. “Initially I thought please don’t hit my wife, my wife’s in the car in front of me, three kids in the car and that was going through my head, please don’t hit her.”

Luckily, it didn’t and Rice was not seriously injured from the runaway, either. He commented on the Instagram post above that he’s a little sore from the airbags in his Jeep going off. His Wrangler, on the other hand, is totaled. It’s not exactly clear which vehicle the wheel/tire came from, but Rice suspects it fell off of the dump truck shown at the beginning of the video.

*Homepage image courtesy of NJ.com on Twitter.

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Derek Shiekhi

Derek Shiekhi's father raised him on cars. As a boy, Derek accompanied his dad as he bought classics such as post-WWII GM trucks and early Ford Mustang convertibles.

After loving cars for years and getting a bachelor's degree in Business Management, Derek decided to get an associate degree in journalism. His networking put him in contact with the editor of the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, who hired him to write freelance about automotive culture and events in Austin, Texas in 2013. One particular story led to him getting a certificate for learning the foundations of road racing.

While watching TV with his parents one fateful evening, he saw a commercial that changed his life. In it, Jeep touted the Wrangler as the Texas Auto Writers Association's "SUV of Texas." Derek knew he had to join the organization if he was going to advance as an automotive writer. He joined the Texas Auto Writers Association (TAWA) in 2014 and was fortunate to meet several nice people who connected him to the representatives of several automakers and the people who could give him access to press vehicles (the first one he ever got the keys to was a Lexus LX 570). He's now a regular at TAWA's two main events: the Texas Auto Roundup in the spring and the Texas Truck Rodeo in the fall.

Over the past several years, Derek has learned how to drive off-road in various four-wheel-drive SUVs (he even camped out for two nights in a Land Rover), and driven around various tracks in hot hatches, muscle cars, and exotics. Several of his pieces, including his article about the 2015 Ford F-150 being crowned TAWA's 2014 "Truck of Texas" and his review of the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, have won awards in TAWA's annual Excellence in Craft Competition. Last year, his JK Forum profile of Wagonmaster, a business that restores Jeep Wagoneers, won prizes in TAWA’s signature writing contest and its pickup- and SUV-focused Texas Truck Invitational.

In addition to writing for a variety of Internet Brands sites, including JK Forum, H-D Forums, The Mustang Source, Mustang Forums, LS1Tech, HondaTech, Jaguar Forums, YotaTech, and Ford Truck Enthusiasts. Derek also started There Will Be Cars on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

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