DRW vs SRW safety, tire blowout

AH_AK wrote:

Photomike wrote:
If I bought a truck for a camper I would go with a DRW just to be safe.

Problem that I have is that a DRW would not go down many of the trails / roads that I like to drive on. That was the reason I got rid of my little class C. Was just to wide.

This thread has jumped all over, but the original question had to do with safety. Are DRW safer in terms of maintaining stability in a blowout situation? The answer…probably. The thing is that if the probability of a blowout is low (with quality tires) to begin with and then the DRW advantage in terms of avoiding a subsequent loss-of-control accident is relatively small, then do you care enough to upgrade your truck on these grounds? I was simply trying to get a better feel for how often accidents (loss-of-control) result from a blowout on a truck with a camper and to see if there were more SRW accidents than DRW accidents. Right now, not enough data to say. If fact, no firsthand data of an accident and only one secondhand account. The lack of data tells a story.

Maybe all the SRW folks that had accidents died in the resulting rollover, but it is starting to feel like the actual risk associated with a SRW blowout-induced accident is pretty darn low. In my case, probably low enough that I won’t consider the safety advantage in my decision to upgrade to DRW or stay with my built out SRW. There are other, non safety-related aspects that I will still consider though. Of course, to each their own.

With a bit of "googling" one might find the #1 reason that tires "blow out" is because of sidewall overheating. A bit more will indicate this is caused by ether or both under inflation and overloading.

So outside of manufactured defects and sidewall damage from running into something (#2 & #3) if you use proper PSI inflation AND pay attention to (and don't exceed) the weight rating on the side of the tire a "blowout" is rather unlikely to happen.

Would a DRW be "safer" if it actually DID happen? IMHO sure why not?

While it could be said that ANYTHING is possible personally I don't worry about stuff that is not very probable.



- Mark0.