Rachel Barnes was headed to her parent's house Wednesday afternoon. It was about 2 p.m., she was driving on 392 near Windsor. Then she saw it but didn't have enough time to react. A tire was speeding across three lanes of traffic headed straight for her.
"I'm just slamming on my brakes for all that it's worth," she told 9NEWS. "There was just nowhere for me to go - it was either off into the guardrail on the other side and into the ravine or back into traffic."
Sgt. Blake White with Colorado State Patrol called her lucky. The tire and wheel popped off a horse trailer headed in the opposite direction, Barnes explained. It smashed into the front of her car. The impact can be seen in a video she provided to 9NEWS.
"I was screaming in the car," Barnes said. "Just full on screaming. [The video] doesn't have audio but I was freaking out."
Others stopped to make sure that she was all right. She was able to walk away from the wreck. Her car? Well...
"I had no idea a tire could leave that much damage," she explained. "It just completely shattered almost the front of my car. I'll just take the bus for now."
White said as a highway trooper he's seen tires smash into cars a lot. His advice? Do not swerve out of the way.
"If you see it coming," he continued, "hit the brakes - reduce your speed and just stay in that lane. Basically, you're going to hit it."
Got all that? If a tire is coming for you, there's nothing to be done: the safest thing is to just let it hit you. White said when people try to avoid tires or anything unexpected in the road troopers see a lot of people try and get out of the way and then suddenly those drivers are rolling their car or worse instead of just taking the impact from the tire.
"I would say [Barnes] is lucky because it could have been crazy. Let's say it started bouncing up and say it didn't hit directly in front of the car and let's say it bounced up and hit the windshield," White explained. "That's a different type of impact."
White said that drivers should always be on guard for something like this to happen. He encouraged drivers to give extra following distance from all other cars on the road. He asked that drivers not speed nor cut in and out of traffic. This gives drivers more time to react and think clearly, he added.