Vehicle & Equipment · Driver Training VideoTire Management & Blowouts

Tires are the only part of this truck touching the road. Everything else — the brakes, the steering, the eighty thousand pounds behind you — comes down to four contact patches about the size of your boot.

Start with pressure

Underinflated tires flex more, and flex builds heat. Heat is what destroys a tire from the inside before it ever fails on the outside. Run a tire twenty percent low and you can double the heat building inside it.

Tread matters just as much

Federal rule requires at least four-thirty-seconds of an inch of tread on steer tires, and at least two-thirty-seconds on every other tire on the truck.

Two more habits that save tires: never mix radial and bias-ply tires on the same axle — federal rule prohibits it, and it's a real handling risk. And never load past what that tire is rated to carry. An overloaded tire runs hotter at any pressure, no matter how new it is.

Your company standard: gauge every tire cold before the truck moves, note the reading on your pre-trip, and write up anything questionable on the DVIR before you leave the yard — not after. A tire that gets flagged and fixed costs you ten minutes.

If a tire does let go at speed, don't grab the brake. Grip the wheel firmly, ease off the accelerator, and let the truck slow down on its own while you hold it straight. Braking hard on a blown tire is what turns a bad moment into a jackknife.