[chuckm]

I sure have seen benefits from "side drafting" an 18 wheeler. That's my preferred method on the interstate. I just monitor the conditions around me and move aside for other vehicles as needed. Unfortunately, the vast majority of my driving is on two lane highways... if the 18 wheeler is heading in the wrong direction, the draft kinda sucks!

RE 18 wheeler tires coming apart: When I was in college, I was making a trip home one night. I was pulling up to pass this 18 wheeler on a two lane highway when I suddenly heard a huge BOOM! The rest seemed to happen in slow motion. First, a couple chunks of tire came off. Then a huge strip of full width tread peeled away and is coming directly at me (the driver's side rear-most tire had blown). I stomped the brakes and swerved toward the shoulder. The tread flipped up and a little sideways as it came off, and as I'm passing next to it, it stood a little higher than my car. During all this, the trucker slams on his brakes, engulfing me in a cloud of burnt rubber smoke, raining what I can only guess was the remaining bits of tire sidewall all over me. I pulled over into a gas station a couple hundred yards up the road and had a serious case of the shakes.
At any rate, from what I could see, there is no safe place to be when one of those big tires blows.