I think it's overblown as well. I had a tread seperation on our 93 explorer. Tread came off completely in one piece and never lost control of the car. I also slowed down when I heard it starting to thump. I think some people get so freaked out when a tire starts to go they over react and loose control of the car.
Think of your average driver, stereo full blast, smoking, eating, drinking, beating the kids and speeding. No wonder they roll the car.

Maybe some of you pilots can weigh in on this but I heard that quite a few plane crashes occur because of the pilot forgetting what his primary job is FLY THE PLANE. When something goes wrong mechanicaly with the plane they are wondering what just happened instead of flying the plane and loose control.