(Continued from Part A.) Even now, our Baytown tire defect attorneys understand that dealers, technicians, vehicle inspectors, and others base critical decisions regarding the quality of a tire on its perceived tread depth. But tires experience uneven wear patterns, and some of the most dangerous tire weaknesses and defects might be hidden within the tire’s multiple layers of rubber, polymers, and steel.
For these reasons, John Baldwin, the materials scientist who conducted one of the central Ford Motor Company studies on tire aging particularly criticizes the common practice of rotating old spare tires onto vehicles. Even if the tires have never been used, natural tire aging processes have weakened them severely. Baldwin notes that the average full-size spare is 9 years old, while the average mini-spare, similar in style to the one you might find on a 2007 PT Cruiser, is 12 years old.
The crash fatality statistics from tread separation accidents involving aging tires continue to tell a sobering tale. By 2008, Safety Research & Strategies Inc. (SRS Inc.) had complied data on 159 accidents in which tires older than 6 years suffered tread-belt separations. Our Baytown tire defect attorneys point out that most of these incidents led to crashes after a loss of vehicle control following the tread-belt separations. These 159 tread separation wrecks resulted in 128 deaths and 168 non-fatal injuries.
A more recent compilation reveals 252 accidents with 223 deaths and 300 injuries. Our Baytown tire defect attorneys emphasize that these statistics represent only that fraction of aged tire tread separation accidents that resulted in civil lawsuits. Other public data sources such as police reports do not capture tire age data in relation to fatal accidents.
The RMA basically blames tire tread separation accidents and fatalities on consumer ignorance. An RMA press release stated that the U.S. consumer’s “knowledge of proper tire maintenance continues to be lacking….” The RMA mentioned that its survey showed that “only 15% of U.S. drivers knew how to check tire pressures properly.”
Our Baytown tire defect attorneys believe that even if you do not know how to properly check tire pressures yourself, you likely do know how to take your vehicle into a full service gas station, dealer, or other place with knowledgeable technicians who can properly check the tire pressure for you. But even if you and your technician know how to keep your tires properly inflated, you might still not know much about the process of tire aging or its effects.
Sean Kane, the president of SRS Inc., advocates a comprehensive program to educate the consumer and incidentally dealers and service technicians on tire aging. He suggests a consumer awareness campaign, solid training program, and a non-coded (i.e. comprehensible) date of tire manufacture to be stamped on the tire. Currently, the counter-intuitive date coding consisting of a week and year is included in the numerical string containing the DOT number and other data. The data included in the string varies among different types and makes of tire.
Kane emphasizes that without a clearly comprehensible manufacture date, tires that look like they have good treads with continue to be mounted on vehicles no matter how old the tires are. And this mistake could easily be fatal when that tire tread separates while you’re traveling on the highway at high speeds and you experience a blowout, loss of vehicle control, and catastrophic crash.
Our Baytown tire defect attorneys will have more in another day’s blog on this topic of tire aging, tread separation, RMA efforts to stall reforms, and your safety. In the meantime, learn more about what you can do in the event of serious wreck by downloading our free book on steps to take to protect your rights, interests, and chances of obtaining fair financial compensation from those who caused your crash.