What Happens When Your Tires Blow Off?

At the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, many years ago, during practice, there was a horrific incident where a driver (Sebastien Buemi) had both his front tires blow off while driving down a straight away at high speed. The video of this can be found on YouTube (I can’t find an official version I can link to but it is easy to find), and the failure is what we would call a “catastrophic” failure of the suspension system of the car. The driver walked away from this failure, which was good, but it is still quite spectacular to watch.

The race itself was quite interesting, but this catastrophic failure got me thinking about in a regular life if this kind of catastrophic failure occurred would you be prepared? I ask this question a fair amount, but it is something you need to really think about especially if you have a family (wife, 2.36 kids, dog, etc.,).

What kind of catastrophe could this be? Let’s not talk about those, since it’s morbid and not really the point of this post, but what kind of safety measures can be set up to protect against catastrophic event?

• A Will, write one now, buy software or see a lawyer, but if you don’t have an up to date Will then you are asking for trouble. I must admit my Will is way out of date (it doesn’t even mention my son), so I need to follow up on that right away.
• A living will, or a power of attorney might be useful too. If you have loved ones making sure they can get at things if you are incapacitated is an important aspect in your family’s safety net.
• Insurance is a major part of this safety net. For life insurance we are talking TERM insurance (not whole life), insurance is NOT an investment, it is a safety net.
• Disability insurance? Don’t know about that one, but if your work offers it at some kind of discount, then look into it (but then again, the folks at Nortel who had that are now in a pickle too). Any opinions on this portion of your safety net would be appreciated.
• Debt reduction is important, if a catastrophe arises and you are already heavily in debt, this could make for a bigger issue for your family.

As Chris Rock: Bigger and Blacker said:

They shouldn’t even call it insurance.
They just should call it ”in case sh*t.”
l give a company some money
in case sh*t happens.

Chris Rock

But remember, sh*t happens, just ask Mr. Buemi whether he planned to have both his tires blow off on Friday. Be ready, in case it happens.