Danger Lurks Everywhere!

There was a piece on the news the other day, about one in three cars on the road having dangerously under-inflated tired. And they shows a harrowing video of a mini van swerving around cones at a high velocity with tires that probably needed an extra 20 psi in them, and you could see the sides of the tire stretching horizontally under the pressure.

The is the worst case of hype I've seen in a long time. I've seen a lot of car tires in my day, and while walking around the parking lot here, it's entirely possible that one-third of the cars have under-inflated tires. But not one--out of over one hundred-or-so cars I checked out--not one had tires as under-inflated as shown in this so-called piece of breaking news. At worst, the tires have been low about 5 psi of pressure, hardly a "dangerous" situation in my book.

My tires have an "ideal" pressure of 30 psi, and a maximum rating of 35 psi. I couldn't find a minimum recommended pressure, but the fact that there is an acceptable variance suggests that a tire that's not at the ideal pressure is not a safety hazard. Perhaps it decreases gas mileage, but it's not automatically a safety hazard.

And if you can believe that video, severely under-inflated tires are only a safety hazard if you drive a mini van through a series of curves like a race car. NOT LIKELY, I should think.

Stupid, fluffed up piece of news. *grumbling* That was the best they could come up with?