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Comment by comrade1234 | Hacker News Reader

I just got back from a trip to the USA where I spent about five days driving around Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin and the number of shredded truck tires on the highways was flabbergasting.

From what I understand, in the USA when a truck tire wears down they put a new layer of tread on it. But it doesn't seem to work very well as it eventually peels off.

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Those are called retreads and they are not uncommon worldwide. If you're seeing anything other than long thin strips of tread on the road it's not a retread related failure.

Every now and then the Karens get to screeching about it and it reaches a critical mass and the NHTSA does a study and they find that most of the debris you're seeing has nothing to do with retreads. Here's the summary of a recent one:

https://www.moderntiredealer.com/industry-news/commercial-bu...

Retredding like this is also entirely normal in Europe. I guess they just have more trucks?

Retreading is legal but only specified companyes with its own E mark legally can do it. And combine that with more in depth 12 or 6 months inspection for > 3.5t trucks it usually means that the tires are in better condition.

Truck tire chunks on freeways was one of the biggest surprises to me.

I hit a retread as it became detached from the lorry I was following on the M25, UK. Scary moment, similar to the video in TFA, + an expensive repair job.

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