[blucar]

The term "widow maker" is a term that has been battered around for many many years, a myth, probably started because it made good press.
I can speak with some degree of authority because I owned and operated a company for over forty years that operated a fleet of light/medium/heavy duty trucks, ranging from half ton to three axle 50.k GVW diesels. Amongst my jobs with the company was being the company safety officer and until five years ago I held a commercial drivers license which required that I meet all of the DOT safety standasrds for over fifty years. Of course in rural, and/or farm areas DOT standards can be very loose.

Actual split (two piece) wheels have not been a common item since the 1950's, spit ring wheels were a very common wheel through the early 1980's. Of the seven Firestone wheels shown in 'petehooies' contribution, only type AR, RHP-5, R-5. and RH-5 are spit rim type, the rest are 'lock ring' type.

In 1981 we bought a new 81 International 1954 B 3 axle 50K # GVW diesel truck that had Bud lock ring tube type wheels. With the advent of tubeless tires for HD trucks in the early 80's we changed our entire fleet to tubeless tires and wheels.