Blowing out a tire while driving on the interstate at the, er, totally normal within-the-law speeds I usually drive has always been a fear of mine. My vision of what it must be like was informed mostly by movies and by the big strips of 18-wheeler blown tires one sees on the road.
Well, it wasn’t like that at all, so that’s a good thing.
At least for me, in this car (a 2020 Veloster, my son’s lease), it was if I’d gone over a big, weird bump in the road – which made no sense since I hadn’t seen anything, but then made sense the moment the tire pressure warning came on and started screaming at me.
So….over to the side of I-20 and do what? Well, call AAA of course! Because that’s why we pay for it, right?
This happened yesterday. I still haven’t heard from the AAA dispatcher.
I mean, I called and the AAA operator said a dispatcher would call me and that she was putting the call on priority alert because I was, yes, on the shoulder of the interstate. I waited for about 30 minutes. Nothing. I would like to add that I wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. I was about 30 miles from Birmingham, yes but maybe half a mile from an exit at which I knew there were businesses.
I called AAA again. This time I was on hold for about fifteen minutes before anyone spoke to me, and she said that they were having troubles with their dispatching system, but yes, one would be contacting me “shortly.” (Just about my least favorite word.)
I waited five minutes, said, screw it, opened up maps on my phone, found a random “tow-tire-auto business” nearby, called them, and in ten minutes, a guy was there changing my tire.
I would like to quickly add that I can, indeed, change a tire. We learned how to do it in driver’s ed in high school, and in fact had races, a la pit stop crew – in class. I’ve changed tires before since then. But the blown tire was on the driver’s side and I just wasn’t comfortable struggling with tires by myself in all that traffic.
So let someone else do it, and pay them for it, and then ready that complaint to AAA. I’m just kind of amazed that I never did hear back from them – at all.
Anyway, back to BHM on the spare, and right to the neighborhood tire store where they, sadly enough, know me. Well.
(I went through a period a couple of years ago where we were constantly getting nails in tires – I track it to the time when Organist Son started his job, the drive to which would take him/us through interesting neighborhoods, industrial areas and over railroad tracks .)
Charlotte was Both 
I had a similar experience last year on the way to the church where I serve as organist. I saw a pothole on the on ramp too late to avoid it and I heard a sound like something had flown off the military truck carrier I was passing and hit my van about 10 miles later. A few minutes after that I noticed the low tire light. As luck would have it, I was getting ready to pull off at my exit and my sister and her auto mechanic husband live close by. I called them and she met me at the gas station. While she took my kids and me to church, my brother-in-law changed the tire for my spare. The next day we replaced all the tires. (They needed it.) I was barely even late for church (although I did call my pastor and inform him about the situation and one of the members of the congregation offered us a ride when she drove by). It was all far less traumatic than I expected. I do know that, at least in my state, the state police are more than happy to help on the interstate. They’d much rather park behind you and force traffic to give you space while you change your tire than clean your body off the interstate.
I’m glad you’re ok.
Send them your bill demanding payment. Maybe it will work.