Image Credit: 7NEWS AdelaideTalk about being wheelie unlucky. A driver lost a tire while driving on the highway in Regency Park, a suburb in South Australia. the wheel didn't just flop over and stop. It went bouncing off across the lanes on its own, all the way over to the left guard rail. As it happens, 7NEWS Adelaide shared dashcam footage of the incident, where you can see the exact moment where the Toyota Camry driver, well, apparently doesn't even notice they lost a tire. You can watch it happily bound across multiple lanes of traffic, all while the Camry keeps at speed. Though eventually it comes to a stop, it doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry for a car that's not essentially a tripod.Fortunately, no one was hurt. Though they very well could have been. A wheel coming loose on a highway can go very wrong, very fast. Like, super, incredibly, ridiculously wrong. This time it didn't though, and the driver is out one tire and a fair bit of dignity.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe situation does force us to ask some obvious questions, though. How does a wheel just come off a moving car at all? Shouldn't it be secured? And once it's loose, how much damage can a runaway tire actually do? The answer is yes, and a lot. But accidents can and do occur, and we shouldn't be so high and mighty that we assume this could never happen to us.How a Wheel Comes Off a Moving CarMost of the time, the wheel nuts are your culprit. It's "wheel nuts" that a potential catastrophe on the road could come down to those bad boys, but here we are. They hold the wheel on, and they have to be tightened to a specific torque. If they're left loose, they can slowly work their way off as you drive. So if you had a recent tire change or service where the nuts weren't tightened properly or weren't rechecked, this could happen.It isn't always the nuts, though. A wheel can also come off if the studs themselves snap. Or you might have a wheel bearing fail, then your hub is gone with the wind. Those are rarer, but they happen. What caused this particular Camry to lose its wheel hasn't been said, and from a bouncing tire alone, there's no way to tell.A Loose Wheel Is a 'Wheel' HazardA tire bouncing down a motorway isn't just a funny clip, though, as we might tend to forget when we're scrolling through IG or TikTok. A loose wheel can suddenly turn into a heavy projectile. In fact, it can have enough force to smash a windshield, cause a crash, or badly hurt someone in another car. People have been killed by stray wheels that came off other vehicles, so it's extremely lucky that didn't happen here.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe good news is that you'll usually get at least a little warning before this kind of thing happens. A wheel about to come loose might wobble, shudder, or make a clunking sound, especially as you pick up speed. If you notice any of that, it's worth pulling over to check. And we'll leave you with one bit of advice that everyone should heed with that in mind: always check your nuts. It could save your life.If you want more stories like this, follow Guessing Headlights on Yahoo so you don't miss what's coming next.