Maybe tires can degrade. These vehicles do travel a lot & often overladen as well. That's why most travel by night to keep the tires cool.
Regardless, such incidents could have been prevented. Should not even happen at all. Tire exploded when lorry was at the furthest left lane, causing lorry to swerve across 3 lanes hitting the barrier and crossing into opposing traffic. There's no way those cars could have avoided it. The first car that impacted (Waja) was flung aside like a toy car.
Oh, you are referring to the lorry tyre exploding case and swerved across 3 lanes. I saw that on news few days ago but din't remember what was it about.
Regarding tyre degrading, I think it is quite possible. For us normal users, tyres probably last like 2-4 years for an average user in a normal vehicle. But for these lorries, they travel much more often and longer than our vehicles, so it is not surprising that their tyres reached the end of their lifespan much faster than our tyres. The stress on tyres is also greater as well due to their heavy load.
During my trip to KL last week, I have seen tyre remains and debris along the road many times. This probably shows that tyre bursting or tearing apart is happening quite common on our highway.