NTSB says 13-year-old was driving truck in crash involving University of the Southwest golf teams

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[BenLurkin]

A 13-year-old was driving the pickup truck that struck a van in West Texas in a fiery collision that killed nine people, including six members of a college golf team and their coach, a National Transportation Safety Board official said Thursday.

The child and a man traveling in the truck also died.

The truck's left front tire, which was a spare tire, also blew out before impact, said NTSB Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg.

The men's and women's golf teams were traveling in a 2017 Ford Transit van that was towing a box trailer when it collided with the truck, and both vehicles burst into flames, according to NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss.

He said the vehicles crashed on a two-lane asphalt highway where the speed limit is 75 mph, though investigators have not yet determined how fast either vehicle was traveling.

[ConservativeMind]

Wouldn’t the “right front tire” going out cause the truck to veer insanely to the right?

[Robert A Cook PE]

Good point. Easy though, to assume a cheap low-rent bald spare with bad sidewalls.

[El Cid]

The article said 'left front tire'. I typed 'right', in error.
Even though blowing the left front tire might be more consistent with the car veering left (and then hitting the van head on), I'd think any tire blowing out when driving fast (if the speed limit was 75 mph, I presume they were driving excess of 75 mph) would cause a problem - either through a direct consequence, or due to an over reaction to compensate.

[Scarlett156]

I see people driving way too fast a lot and I almost never drive. Mr K (not the one on this forum) keeps saying - I mean almost every day - that he sees people driving way over the speed limit and out of control every single day.

Try not to take this stuff for granted, folks. Your life can be ended in less than the blink of an eye. You can be the best driver ever and never with an accident. Doesn’t matter. The effed-up A-holes are out there. Some of them are pre-teens.

[Red Badger]

Yep, happened to me a few years back.

MIL boyfriend gave us a travel trailer just to get it out of his former residence. We lived 500 miles away.

Borrowed a friend’s diesel Ram to haul it back home. Had 3 blow outs along the way, took over 24 hours to get home.........................

[Phoenix8]

I worked with teens that age my entire career and some are already worthless. I would see them 10 years later in the paper in jail for meth, rape or assault. Sometimes they turn it around, often they don’t.

It came out in the news yesterday this sweet kid intentionally set fire to his parents home a year or two ago (can’t remember the source, was on TV). Of course I agree his parents had much To do with him being this way (environment and probably genetically).

[Phoenix8]

Oops just posted the same thing about the fire.