Tire Blowouts on Hot San Antonio Roads: Liability When a Tire Lets Go at Speed

A tire blowout accident is a crash that happens when a tire suddenly loses air or comes apart while a vehicle is moving, and in South Texas heat these failures strike far more often than most drivers imagine. Our Bexar County car accident lawyer handle blowout cases because the driver who loses control is frequently not the one at fault — the blame may rest with a tire manufacturer, a shop that mounted a defective or aged tire, or a company that kept its vehicles rolling on tires it knew were worn out. A blowout on I-35 or Loop 1604 at highway speed can hurl a vehicle across lanes or into a rollover before the driver has any chance to react.
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San Antonio summers are brutal on tires. Sustained triple-digit pavement temperatures drive up the internal heat of a tire, and heat is what pushes a worn, underinflated, or defective tire past its breaking point — the tread peels away from the body of the tire and the whole assembly fails. When that happens on a crowded interstate, the injuries are often severe, and the cause usually traces back to a defect or a maintenance failure rather than the driver.

Determining why the tire failed is what decides who pays for the crash it caused, and it’s where our San Antonio car accident lawyers focus first.

Why Tires Fail in San Antonio Heat

A tire that blows out almost always had a problem long before the day it let go. The causes our attorneys investigate include:

• Tread separation. A manufacturing defect or age causes the tread to peel from the tire’s body, especially under heat and load.
• Old or expired tires. Tires degrade with age even with good tread; a shop that sells or installs an old tire creates a hidden hazard.
• Underinflation and overloading. Low pressure builds heat fast, and a fleet or owner that ignores it invites a failure.
• Defective repairs. A bad plug or patch, or a tire mounted incorrectly, can fail at highway speed.
• Road-hazard damage left unaddressed. A prior impact that weakened the tire and was never inspected.

Who Can Be Held Responsible

A blowout claim can reach several parties. If a manufacturing or design defect caused the tread to separate, the tire maker may be liable under Texas products liability law. If a shop sold or installed an aged or improperly repaired tire, that business may share the fault. If a commercial fleet or vehicle owner ran on tires they knew were unsafe, they may be responsible as well. Identifying every source protects your claim and often uncovers additional insurance to cover serious injuries.

You can check whether a tire has been recalled through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s recall database. A recalled tire that was never replaced is strong evidence that the failure was both known and preventable.

Preserve the Tire — It Is the Case

In a blowout claim, the failed tire is the single most important piece of evidence, and it is routinely thrown away at the scene or by a tow yard before anyone realizes its value. Do not let it be discarded. A tire expert can examine a separated tread and determine whether the failure came from a manufacturing defect, age, a bad repair, or road damage — a finding that decides the entire case.

Our team works to recover and preserve the tire and the vehicle before they are lost, and to bring in the right expert to read what the failure actually shows. A former police officer on our investigation team documents the scene while it is fresh. That physical proof is what turns “the tire just blew” into a claim against the party responsible.

The Injuries Blowouts Cause

Blowouts and the rollovers and lane departures they trigger produce catastrophic injuries — spinal cord damage, traumatic brain injury, and worse. Because the failure often comes without warning at full speed, occupants have no time to brace, and the resulting harm can be life-changing or fatal.

What a Blowout Claim Can Recover

A recovery can include medical costs, the cost of future care, lost income, diminished earning capacity, property damage, and pain and suffering, plus wrongful death and survival claims where a blowout caused a death. Where a defective tire is involved, exemplary damages may apply if the maker knew of the danger. Because the proof rides on a tire that gets tossed within hours, blowout claims punish delay more than almost any other crash case.

Talk to Our San Antonio Car Accident Lawyers