26-08-2019, 12:15 PM
In modern times, a puncture is a rare occurrence, and more likely to be due to potholing than a nail or other debris. Research a few years ago by a major tyre manufacturer suggested you can expect a puncture every 60,000 miles or so on average. The same probably isn’t true of tubed tyres, but sudden deflations don’t happen all that often. You are far more likely to get a slow puncture. This in itself is a problem. Tyres running at low pressure generate more heat. Excess heat causes the tyre structure to degrade. Eventually the thing explodes, or at very least sheds its tread. This is what has happened to the bits of tyre you see lying on motorways. So, the main danger these days is not being stranded at the side of the road with a flat tyre, but being stranded by the road with a flat tyre a couple of weeks later because you didn’t check tyre pressures. Of course all of this is irrelevant because all of us here check our pressures every week, don’t we?
Alan Fairless