Thou shalt not stint on speed rating

This is apparently what happens when you do:

I suspect most of the stores have exactly this policy enforced by their gherkins, and given the litigious nature of both of John Edwards' Americas, I can't say I'm surprised.

On the other hand, I may have created a problem for myself. Gwendolyn eased out of Oppama with H-rated rubber, nominally good for 130 mph, which makes sense for a car which can't exceed 130 mph unless you push it off the frigging Sears Tower. This year, seeing an opportunity, I bought her some V-rated tires, which are supposed to hold up to around 149 mph, not because I expect to be doing any extensive high-speed trials, but because they might have just a little extra margin of heat resistance during my summer road trips.

But suppose I have some massive tire failure on the road somewhere. Is some lugnut jockey going to go unbalanced on me because my spare is an H, or because all they have are V- or (gasp) Z-rated tires? It's not entirely theoretical a question: on a run from here to Los Angeles about twenty years ago, I lost both Dymphna's right rear tire and spare, 150 miles apart, in deepest New Mexico, and had to be towed into Albuquerque to find 185-70R13s with an H rating, which were a lot more common then than 215-55R16s of any specification are now.