Tires...how bad is to bad to run on the road?

I went out to my truck today to check something and this box truck is parked beside it. I notice the right rear tire is slack and has some steel showing. Upon further inspection it's not that bad compared to the one beside it

 

What the actual fk....

 

That is a disaster waiting to happen

 

Yeah, I couldn't find the guy who drives it so I left him a note. I'd hate to think I was riding beside him on the interstate.

 

Normally I can’t stand this DOT checkpoints set up by the police, but whoever is driving this thing is a prime candidate to be stopped by one!

 

Good grief. Well, there's the "play stupid games..." half of the equation. Stupid prize is currently in the mail.

Years ago I was being passed on the left by a rusted out caprice classic. As it slowly crept up I could hear this whumph-whumph-whumph noise. Fron pax tire was so far out of balance it looked like it was skipping over invisible speedbumps. I remember thinking that being fender to fender was probably not a good place to be and I backed way the hell off. Several minutes later, they went shooting across all lanes, minus one tire. Fortunately no damage to other vehicles.

 

While we're on the subject, just last week I caught an act of total stupidity on the Taco dash cam.

I was on my way to work at about 6:15 AM. A guy in an early '80s Buick Regal was driving very erratically in front of me, weaving in his lane and with very inconsistent speeds. Then he floored it and I lost sight of him.

A few minutes later, he had plowed the front driver's side of his car into the concrete divider (on the parkway, near downtown) and traffic came to a screeching halt. He eventually got the poor Regal started again, then hauled it over into the middle lane and continued driving at about 35 MPH (ambient commuters will do 80 on the parkway).
The car was hemorrhaging fluids and he was running on the front rim.

I won't upload the video, but can post up a capture of it:

 

dangerous sure


but on drift night it makes a pretty spark fireworks show at the local wally world parking lot

 

Shades of Mayberry RFD.

 

Track day bro

 

Dangerous for him and everyone else on the road. Although, tires can go a long ways even with the belts showing.

Back in my younger days I used to nearly destroy rental cars, especially the tires down to bald spots. (Always get the rental insurance) Surprisingly, they would never blow even after hundreds of miles.

 

UPDATE- Poor guy. He had 2 new tires put on that side, a week later his engine blew up.

 

Probably drunk...

 

The cops at the DOT checkpoints they set up in my area would have a field day with this poor bastard!

 

Meh. They only go flat on the bottom side

 

racing slicks drift truck

 

I took my truck into a local store of one of the big chain tire stores (not Discount / America's Tire) to patch a leaking tire (I still have the OEM Goodyear's). They took my truck in the bay, about an hour later the guy (manager?) comes out to talk to me. He says they can't patch my tire because it is too worn down and is in violation of California tread depth regulation - he claims CA requires 8/32nds of an inch minimum depth. I know he's BSing me, so just to see what his motivation was (ignorance of the actual law? try to sell me a new tire?...), I played dumb and asked him what I can do about it. Immediate he takes me over to the tires on display, and proceeds to tell me all about how wonderful their own brand of AT tire is for 4WD trucks, how he just put a set on his own truck (he probably drives a Prius), etc., and of course you have to have same size tires on all 4 wheels of a 4WD, so naturally I need to buy 4 brand new tires right this very minute! I politely declined and left.

Still need to go get the tire patched.... it leaks very slowly, I need to fill it up about once a week.