Steer tires blowing going downhill or on a curve?

i would think popping the knobs to apply the breaks would give you less braking power than the brake pedal.. some trucks only have parking breaks on 1 axle. where brake pedal gives you braking power to all axles.

 

You are correct

and that’s the whole point

if you blow a steer , you don’t want the brakes on the steer axle to be used .

 

Yes there are a lot of "what if's" here which is fine glad you are concerned about it, and in fact this is something that new drivers should be taught to control however if experienced drivers don't know what to do if such an event occurs, than how is a new driver supposed to understand. Getting a front wheel flat on a down hill grade is not something anyone would want however it is possible. this is where if your acting as a professional driver and have put the truck in a gear that will allow it to descend without having to use the brakes your going to be able to descend to the bottom without incident. If there are no safe places in which to safely stop on a down hill incline I'd be more tempted to continue driving till you find a safe spot to stop, better to destroy a rim then to stop and make it very dangerous to other approaching traffic, always consider not just your situation but that of others as well. These days with power steering its not so difficult to steer with a flat front wheel, ask some of the old timers what its like trying to steer a flat front without power steering? The key is to avoid jack knifing the trailer, braking to hard can cause this specially if added to the problem there is also snow and ice on the road, so go light on the brakes and hold the steering tight, try using the trailer brakes only first just lightly apply the brakes this should pull your trailer back, while at the same time try and keep the truck straight. Unfortunately no driver gets to practice this technique at say a driving school scenario one would think this would be high on the priories on the list of things for students to learn, however it seems filling seats in company trucks seems to be the only priority at present.

 

why ? it only makes up 20% of braking power of the total truck and trailer. . im just speculating here because ive never blown a steer before. but its just one of those things we can sit around and talk about what you would do if this happens... but the reality is when it happens you arent going to be prepared because there will be no notice of it happening if its a true blowout.... it is similar to when i wrecked my truck on the mountain running down from the quarry.. me and the other guys that ran up there. used to always talk about how we would jump out of the truck if it starts to go off the side... but the reality is, in the time my brain processed what was happening , and i could make the conscious thought of jumping out of the truck, my truck was already on its side and i was getting thrown around the cab....

in regards to a blowout i think human nature is not to pull the brakes out at first notice because for a split second you arent going to really know what happened.. then when you can form the conscious thought that you had a steer tire blowout, you are going to take your hand off the steering wheel to pull the brakes and that wouldnt be the best thing to do with a steer tire blowout in my opinion... you would be better off riding it out with a death grip on the steering wheel and feathering the brake pedal to the shoulder or where you can safely get off the road.

 

Accelerate, counter steer until control is achieved. You are fighting side force on a steer blowout

 

Had a guy pass me and I could smell what I thought was a dragging brake. I backed off to get some distance from him, as did the truck in front of me. Within a few minutes I saw his truck drop and the front left tire carcass rolling across the freeway. His truck moved half a lane to the left and then he got it back and pulled off on the shoulder. As I got closer, I realized he lost the entire wheel and hub. He did a great job. Funny thing was, that wheel got up against the jersey barrier and kept on going for nearly half a mile. I slowed way down, expecting it to come back into the freeway at anytime. I watched several cars, oblivious to the danger, just keep on going in the left lane next to that rolling wheel. Fortunately it finally came to a stop without falling back into traffic.

 

There are two ways tires fail, either a cap separating from a tire, or under inflation. While it is legal for recaps to be run on the front (it is only illegal on commercial busses), in practice it is not generally done on an OTR truck. Which leaves under inflation. You can buy or make a kit that hooks up to your gladhand, to air your tires any time, any place. It's natural being new to be afraid of things you don't know..... there are a LOT bigger hazards out there than having a steer tire fail. (as an aside, check and fill tire pressures when they are cold, exception being if a tire is visibly low or leaking..... there is a misconception that the air pressure for the max load is somehow the "maximum pressure" the tire will hold, and then people under inflate the tire to give "room for pressure rise". The pressure is simply how much it takes to hold the maximum weight the tire is capable of).

 

Hand brake?
Next question is going to be where is that?

Many new trucks don’t come with them anymore and I might be wrong but a previous post said to pull the trailer brakes
Won’t that create another issue?
Someone told me once he was taught in CDL school that a locked trailer will come around and jackknife??

 

Lightly deppressed a trailer will allow better control, you slam em full on, youre creating additional problems. That said, modern trailers have abs, so *provided that that is working and youre still somewhat straight* and you still have control, your trailer abs will keep the trailer from sliding too bad even fully applied

 

If you are paying attention steering blowout not a issue. I’ve had 3 in over 4 decades and it’s just some hard steering till you get stopped on shoulder.