On Beltline, tire debris turns deadly

A swerve to avoid tread causes crash

RALEIGH -- It wasn't like Kelly Dumas to forget to call her husband, Bobby Wilson, and tell him she'd be late picking him up from work.

So as the minutes on Wilson's watch ticked past his 4:30 p.m. quitting time Monday, he kept dialing his wife's cell phone. Voice mail. He landed there four more times.

At last, someone picked up. It was a Raleigh police officer, telling him to get to the hospital. When he got there, his wife was already dead.

Dumas, 33, had crashed into a concrete median on the Raleigh Beltline after she swerved to miss a 3-foot-long piece of tire tread.

Anyone who drives has seen scraps of tires on the pavement and shoulders of state highways. About 30 to 40 percent of debris that the state Department of Transportation clears from roads comes from tires, said Jon Nance, director of field operations.

Drivers can't do much about it.

Wilson blames no one for the tire that led to his wife's death. A longtime truck driver, he thinks of roadway debris as a routine hazard.

"I know it happens. Treads come off," said Wilson, 33, who spent Tuesday trying to muster the strength to look at his 2-month-old son, who bears a striking resemblance to his wife.

"She's been trying to be a mom for years, and she only got to enjoy it for two months," Wilson said.

In some cases, construction-site debris, nails or screws puncture tires, causing them to deflate. But in most cases, whether new tires or retreads, the problem is underinflation due to poor maintenance, tire industry experts say.

"Underinflation creates heat, and so does ambient temperature," said John Snider, president of Snider Tire, a Greensboro-based tire dealer and retreading company. That's why it is more common to see tire carcasses -- which some call "road gators" -- lying on roads during hot summer months, Snider said.

The tire wall flexes more when it loses air pressure, causing the tread to overheat and separate from the inner casing.

Some truck drivers hear a rattling or a boom when tread flies off. But many truck drivers -- with the weight of their cargo spread over 17 other wheels -- might not notice a change until many miles later when they inspect their vehicles off the road.

Howard Bond, a DOT employee, patrols the section of the Beltline between Poole Road and Interstate 40 where Dumas crashed. Bond said no one had called the DOT about the strip of tire tread Dumas tried to miss.

Even if someone had, it's uncertain whether DOT would have been able to get to it right away. Bond said it's nearly impossible to pick off debris as soon as it falls into the path of motorists. It takes him 30 to 40 minutes to run his route along parts of I-40 and I-440. And the accident occurred during rush hour.

About 88,000 cars and trucks travel his stretch of the Beltline each day, according to 2006 DOT statistics. That's an average of 3,600 vehicles per hour -- many more during rush hour.

"When we get calls during rush hour, our folks can't run out into the road because the traffic's so heavy," Nance said.

When the roads are crowded, DOT officials often rely on the traffic flow to clear debris. Pieces of tire tread can have more staying power than other debris, such as ladders, refrigerators, couches, and weed whackers.

"A ladder will move every time it's bumped," Nance said. "A tire tread, it'll flatten... it rolls over like a snake."

Dumas, who had her sister in the car at the time of the crash, had been attempting to avoid the debris. But she hit a guard rail on the right side of the road before overcorrecting to the left. After crossing four lanes of traffic, her car skidded driver's side down along the concrete median before coming to rest.

Dumas had just returned from maternity leave to her job as a information technology consultant at ITC Deltacom. She hated leaving her son and had been thinking about starting her own company so that she could keep little Bobby with her during the day, said her mother, Hanunah Habeebullah.

The whole family had rallied around Dumas in her new role as mother. Her older sister Casey Dumas had planned to move back to the Triangle from Tennessee to be closer to her sister and nephew. Casey had been hunting for jobs Monday before the sisters began their deadly trek on the Beltline. Casey escaped the accident with a few bruises and a broken finger.

Bobby Wilson thinks their son knows his mom is missing. He fussed all night Monday as family members abruptly weaned him.

"He must know," Wilson said. "They'd stay up talking and playing until midnight most nights. I'm sure he misses her voice."

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Kelly Dumas will be buried at 2 p.m. today at a Muslim burial ground in Zebulon. A brief service will be held at 1:30 p.m. at the Islamic Center of Raleigh on Atwater Street.

(Staff reporter Bruce Siceloff contributed to this report.)