And if so, is there a reason behind it?
It appears that I see a LOT more truck tire debris on the highway these days. In fact, I noticed significantly more during the heat wave we had up here (NH). However, the days are cooler now and I still seem to see a larger than normal quantity.
Is there a possible explanation for this, or am I mistaken (I just notice it more now)?
WAG-because of the economic problems/cost of fuel, more truckers are buying retreads and/or running tires longer.
Here the highway department has to have some money shuffled over to the corrections department to get the labor (Cost of transport, guarding etc.) and the highway department doesn’t have the money.
The Wisconsin highway departments are not picking up debris this year. They picked up once this spring and that is all they’re doing. I have to say they never even cleaned up around my area this spring despite claims. There is still stuff along the road from the flood that put it there last year. I’ve called the police to report high weeds that cause a hazard at intersections and they call the road department to have it taken care of. Other than taking care of dangerous conditions the Wisconsin state highway departments are leaving stuff go because of the budget. Tire pieces, dropped junk and roadkill are not being picked up.
Most of what I have seen is been in the roadway, suggesting that it is recent (and not yet pushed to the shoulder by passing traffic).
Strips of semi tires were removed regularly from the interstates. There were highway trucks that went down the interstates often, and picked up debris on the highway. I don’t think it was on the interstate longer than a day in the southern half of the state. Roadkill was different and did take some time to have them removed from along the road. It was removed from the road to the ditch when spotted.
I can’t give an answer, but I was hit by a shredded tyre strip today. No damage done, but it was surprising thing to happen.
On my recent road trip, there were road gators big and small all over the place, except for the NY Turnpike, where I actually saw a maintenance pickup slowly going down the shoulder with the guy on the passenger side picking up all the poor little lost rubber reptiles.