Kia crash and flip in Chatsworth (video)

In My Humble Opinion
1

This video has been making the rounds. It shows dashcam footage of a tire hitting a Kia on the freeway, and launching the car 12 feet in the air and flipping it.

Something about this scream “FAKE” to me. It’s too “perfect”, there seems to be a lack of detail in any report, but most of all, the physics seems wrong. I don’t think the tire has enough energy to get the car that airborne. I don’t think the car would ride up on the tire at all. And I’ve watched a LOT of stupid driver dashcam footage, and they rarely get airborne.

Am I just too disbelieving of, well, everything?

2

It wasn’t just the tire, it was the wheel as well. Probably a one in a million sort of accident but I can believe it.

3

Saw this happen on a race track while driving in a figure 8 race. The car that hit the tire barrel rolled a couple times. A second car punted the tire into a chain link fence that surrounded the track.

4

The energy isn’t coming from the tire. The energy to get the car airborne is coming from the car’s own forward momentum. The tire is just acting like a ramp.

A similar accident from 2021:

A crash with similar physics, although this is one car hitting another on the tire and the tire did not come off first (but it’s still contact with the second car’s tire that flips the first car):

So it is rare, but it happens.

5

Goddamn, that wheel had it in for the poor little Kia! Did you see how it came back for a second shot? Vengeful!

6

Yeah I saw that. Sort of tried a Coup de grass. Sheess it’s crazy.

7

Don’t forget the police would have viewed the dashcam footage together with eyewitness reports.

8

And the cause of that accident was the idiot in the truck who put spacers on his wheel hubs to make the wheels stick out. That’s a big no-no, and can lead to exactly what happened there.

9

Coupe de glass