Last summer I was driving my daughters 36 Chev PU in eastern Washington when there was an explosion that happened at about 70 MPH. When I got the truck stopped I thought something happened to the trailer that I was towing.
What happened is that a steel belt let go. When I got the truck stopped, there was about a 14 inch chunk of steel belted radial flapping and hitting the fender. I ended up driving it with this chunk flapping for about 2 miles at about 5 MPH on the shoulder to a rest stop. At the rest stop another street rodder and we're looking at it when another guy said that he had a hack saw; which was used to saw the chunk of tread off of the tire. With that piece gone I was able to drive the truck to our destination. I'm still amazed that the tire still had air in it and hadn't blown.
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The tires on the truck had been on there for about 20 years, but had good tread on them; which isn't a good indicator anymore. After I got to the campgrounds where we were going to camp, I took the tire off and went looking for another tire. I replaced both fronts and when the took the right tire off it had a bulge in it and could have gone at anytime too. Both of the tires were B.F. Goodrich Radial TA's.