By Steven Symes 
It was a crazy morning on 1-285 westbound in Dekalb County, Georgia on May 5 when a loose truck tire ripped through the roof of a Mercedes SUV. Many people just naturally assumed the driver and anyone else in the German luxury vehicle were killed, if not critically injured, but miraculously nobody was injured.
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We know from personal experience, as well as covering many runaway tire stories, that getting hit by one can be devastating. A tire mounted on a wheel is designed to roll easily, allowing one that’s loose to pick up plenty of speed. Plus, a truck tire mounted to a wheel is incredibly heavy.
Plus, a loose tire can bounce, meaning it can come down directly on top of a vehicle, which appears to be what happened here. After all, the Mercedes appears to have sustained zero front end damage, but the roof is torn apart.
How the driver, survived this isn’t clear, so we’ll just call it a miracle. Seeing the tire sitting front of the luxury SUV, it looks rather large, like something off a commercial truck.
According to local journalist Cody Alcorn, Doraville Police say the tire came from the eastbound lanes, bounced over the median wall, then struck the SUV that was heading westbound. Officers searched for a truck that was missing a tire, but couldn’t find one.
We’d be willing to bet it was a spare tire that came loose or wasn’t properly secured in the first place. However, the person who was responsible for this crash never came forward.
It would be nice if a truck driver did contact police and admit his spare tire came loose, that he didn’t realize it until later, but that apparently isn’t happening.
Learn from this incident if you see a loose tire rolling down a road, steer clear of it. They are devastating on impact.
Image via 511GA