1 dead after detached truck wheel flies into traffic on QEW

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A man is dead after a wheel detached from a pickup truck, crossed into oncoming traffic and struck a vehicle on the QEW in St. Catharines on Tuesday.

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Ontario Provincial Police said the crash happened in the Toronto-bound lanes of the QEW just east of Niagara St. shortly before noon.

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OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said the front wheel of a truck that was headed for Niagara Falls detached, then crossed into oncoming traffic. The wheel struck a vehicle that was carrying two U.S. citizens, Schmidt said, and the 52-year-old driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

The passenger, a 52-year-old man, was transported to a hospital with minor injuries.

Police said the driver of the pickup truck who lost the wheel was not injured. Police said that man was the lone person in the vehicle.

It wasn’t immediately clear if any charges would be laid, but Schmidt said the fatal incident is a reminder about the importance of having vehicle parts secured and maintained at all times.

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“There’s nothing, really, drivers can do (in a situation like this). It just happens so quickly. And you really have no time to react, seeing something coming at you at twice the speed limit,” he told CP24.

The highway was expected to be closed in both directions for about four hours and motorists were being asked to avoid the area.

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OTHER INCIDENTS INVOLVING LOOSE WHEELS

There have been many instances over the years of loose wheels on highways wreaking serious havoc.

Last July, OPP said a wheel became detached from a vehicle on Hwy. 400 in Innisfil and struck four vehicles at Hwy. 88, causing various degrees of damage; however, there were no injuries.

In June 2023, two people were hospitalized with minor injuries after a wheel came off a vehicle on Hwy. 401 in the westbound lanes near Dixon Rd.

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A flying wheel turned fatal in October 2022. That deadly incident happened on the QEW at Winston Churchill Blvd.

In August 2020, a 24-year-old man died after a tire hit his vehicle on the 401 in Scarborough. That same summer on the 401 in Scarborough, four people were hospitalized after a set of wheels were separated from a tractor trailer. The driver of that truck was charged.

In the 1990s, a series of highly publicized incidents involving truck wheels flying off on major highways – including several fatalities — led to more strict legislation. An absolute liability law came into effect in 1997, making owners who lose wheels responsible with no defence.

While the exact number of runaway wheel incidents in 2025 is not known, CAA Magazine reported that police in the Golden Horseshoe Area record about 100 wheel-separation incidents each year and officials in Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation estimate that the total provincewide could be more than 1,000 annually.

CAA Magazine reported the most wheel separations happen in May and June, a couple of months after drivers have switched to their summer times from their winter ones. The report cited a vehicle safety engineer who said that some mechanics and garages don’t use the most effective technique to properly tighten the retaining bolts and lug nuts holding wheels in place.

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