Daniel Oines/Flickr Creative Commons
Nothing is more scary than traveling along in your RV enjoying the scenery and then experiencing a sudden loss of tire pressure. Believe me, a tire blowout is something that even the most seasoned RV vets don’t want the surprise of dealing with. When handled improperly, a tire blowout can be extremely dangerous…even catastrophic…resulting in a possible extreme damage to your RV
So, how do you handle a blowout successfully?
Stay cool:
Don’t jerk the steering wheel and resist the urge to jam on the brakes. There are a lot of forces already at work, why add two more?
Accelerate, but only just a bit:
When you accelerate a little, it’s actually easier to maintain control of the vehicle. Hopefully you are already holding the steering wheel firmly at 10 o’clock and two o’clock on the wheel, if not, now would be the time to do that. The idea here is to keep going straight. Now is a good time to focus on breathing too…try to remain calm.
Decelerate & Coast:
Now that you have complete control of your RV, you are going to be slowing down to a coast. While the RV slows, check your mirrors and assess your traffic situation and start thinking about moving to the right.
Apply brakes:
Be gentle here, you have control, keep it by not braking too hard.
Turn on right turn signal:
Why the right? If at all possible, don’t ever stop on the left side of the road. That’s the fastest traffic and is the most dangerous place to be. It’s also the law, so you sort of have to.
Pull over and pat yourself on the back:
Pull your RV off to the side of the road, pat yourself on the back and breathe a sigh of relief…you’ve just survived a blowout.
Sounds simple enough, right? Well those of us who’ve experience it would beg to differ. It’s always a shock and it’s always scary. Be prepared and you’ll be less likely to make a mistake when dealing with a tire blowout in your RV.
Do you have any harrowing stories of tire blowouts? Leave me a comment and tell us about your experience.