Complacency Kills.

I have a similar but much less dangerous story to reinforce your point. 2 little welds on my trailer fender popped loose a while ago. I can have them re-welded for free. It's been like that for a while so I never think about it, just got 2 bungee cords on it. Well I had an 1800 lb load on a few days ago, stacked up looking kinda crazy-scrapper style, and I didn't know it but something was pushing the wheel guard (attached to the fender) against the tire pretty hard. Never happened before so I didn't know to look for it, but if I just checked my load better I might have noticed it. Well after just a few minutes down the road the friction blew my tire. I'm now stopped on a 2 lane road just after a curve, 55 mph country road, and a ditch is on my right so I can't pull over very far. I also don't have my spare trailer wheel.


Thankfully my dad was able to bring the spare and some half decent jacks, and park to block the traffic some.


"I don't need my spare, my trailer tires never go flat" "Ah i don't wanna go all the way out there just to get that welded." "Who cares, it's fine" etc, etc. Stupid. So easily avoided. But at least it taught me to look for stuff rubbing on my tires. And I got a big jack kinda like a farm jack from that load that i'm gonna keep strapped on my trailer now, right under my spare.


Also glad you're ok.