Survival Skills on the road - Series 1

Steps to take after a front tyre burst.

(Continued)

When you experience a front tyre burst, the first thing to do is to have a firm grip on the steering wheel, at the same time removing your right foot off the accelerator and resting it on the bulkhead for balance. The left foot must be on the foot rest and not on the clutch pedal. Since the front wheels are attached to the steering mechanism, the burst wheel is a bit rough on the steering wheel but its manageable when brakes are completely avoided. For automatic vehicles, once you stop acceleration the vehicle will drop gears as the speed reduces and will come to a halt after about 300 to 400 metres, depending on the initial speed when the tyre burst occurred. When driving a manual vehicle, its noble to state that there are other ways of reducing speed without use of foot brakes. Remember that in the tyre burst ordeal, we want to bring the vehicle to a halt but without the use of foot brakes. First when we stop acceleration, the vehicle will substantially reduce speed. Secondly, when the driver has assumed full steering control and vehicle is stable, lower gears can be engaged to reduce speed without tampering with the suspension.

How does engaging a lower gear reduce speed? Generally it is noble to understand that each gear can sustain a certain range of speed, i.e. gear number 1 can tolerate speed from 1-20km per hour and number 2 gear from 20-30km per hour, then number 3 takes over from 30-40km/hr with gear number 4 taking over from 40-60km/hr and so on. Basically we should note that higher gears tolerate higher speeds and low gears tolerate low speeds. This follows that if for instance if I was travelling at a speed of 120km/hr in gear number 5, and I suddenly shift the gears down to gear 3, my speed will drop substantially to around 30 km/hr. During that action, the engine will produce a high humming sound when it adapts to a speed which matches the engaged gear through compression. That is beautiful because it does not tamper with the suspension of the vehicle.

When it is a front tyre burst, rear wheels can only brake independent of the front wheels through the use of the handbrake. NB: This should be done when you are quite sure that you have a front tyre burst.

A rear tyre burst is generally easier to manage since the steering mechanism is attached to the front wheels. Once the above drill is mastered by many drivers, lives and property will be saved. The notion that a tyre burst is always followed by overturning/roll of the vehicle is not true if the above drill is followed. Footbrakes will only become desirable when the speed falls below 40km/hr

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