Bus Stories - Flying Rim

Lots of bus stories lately. Perhaps I should create a separate blog just for my bus stories?

Have you seen videos (especially on the local TV news) where a tire/rim literally flies off a car and hits another car? Well, that type of accident occurred the other morning.

The bus I was riding was going west on the freeway when the entire rim & tire flew off a car that was a few hundred feet ahead of us. The rim & tire:

• went over the center divider,
• hit a car that was going east on the freeway,
• then came back over the center divider,
• hit another car on the driver's door,
• bounced off that car,
  
• hit a truck,
• finally stopped.

It was scary. Very lucky that the flying rim didn't go through a windshield or window. The rim came off of a brand new car. It was clearly an aftermarket rim. I'm assuming that either the rim was defective or that it wasn't tightened properly when installed. How else would the rim and tire just fly off the car like that?

Very lucky that no one was seriously injured. In fact, there didn't appear to be any injuries at all...just damage to the cars involved.