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This informational site has been developed
to benefit anyone who has suffered injuries, or has lost a loved
one as the result of a Cooper tire failure. 
Various,
comprehensive information has been compiled
for those wishing to learn more about Cooper tires and this
contact information is provided for questions
regarding your legal rights.
Chicken bones, soda cans, gloves, sandwiches,
plastic- and in one case, a shotgun shell- were among the objects
mistakenly baked into tires during manufacturing, workers said.
“I’ve seen everything from a watch cured into a tire,
to a time card, to a soda can, to you name it. Aluminum foil-
I’ve seen chicken bones,”
-Martin
Mahan of Texarkana, a 24-year old employee.
“They
would locate the blister inside the tire with their hands,
and then they would take an awl, and they would insert the
awl through the tread, the two belts, and the ply, feeling
with their finger until they penetrated down to the blister
without going through the liner. And the air would escape,
and they would retract the awl, smooth it over with their
fingers, and let it go. I told my boss this was going to bite
us in the ass. Management, I felt, sometimes passed some things
that shouldn’t have been let go for the almighty dollar,
the bonus. Unfortunately, we’re in an industry that if
scrap gets out it kill somebody.”
-Martin Mahan
“Everyone
would say, ‘this company (Cooper) is in for some big
trouble one of these days if we don’t change our practices.”
-William Douglas Eaton, 13-year employee at the Tupelo
plant
“I worried
about some family getting killed out here on the highways.
Tire builders didn’t want to stop making tires because
it would affect their production bonuses.”
-William Douglas Eaton
Managers told
workers to use up the bad stock, hoping some of the tires
they made from it would hold together. “Some of them
did, and some of them didn’t.”
-Jimmy Oats, 30-year employee at the Cooper Texarkana
plant
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Cooper
tires is just one of many companies in the tire industry that has
been under heavy public scrutiny for the recall of tires, but this
was not always the case. Court complications had allowed tire companies
to avoid the spotlight by out of court settlements that demanded confidentiality
by the tire companies. While Firestone had been the main focus involving
tire failures, many other tire companies have had their products recalled,
among them Cooper tires. Over the last 6 years there have been at
least 35 deaths in which Cooper tires were named as the cause for
the accidents. Currently, Cooper is involved in numerous suits for
injuries caused by Cooper tire failures. Cooper Tire and Rubber Company
produces more than 40 million tires annually and has yearly sales
of $3.5 billion.
Legal
Contacts
This informational site has been developed to benefit anyone who
has suffered injuries, or has lost a loved one as the result of
a Cooper tire failure. Various, comprehensive information has been
compiled for those wishing to learn more about Cooper tires and
contact
information is provided for questions regarding your
legal rights. Anyone who has purchased Cooper-made radial tires
from January 1, 1985 until January 6, 2002 will be notified of their
legal rights by the New Jersey Superior Court in Middlesex County,
who is overseeing the nationwide settlement with Cooper Tire and
Rubber Company. This class action and related lawsuit claims that
Cooper did not disclose alleged adhesion problems between tire layers
or manufacturing methods to remove inner liner blisters.
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Watch
this story
in Real Video 
in QuickTime 
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Cooper tires may develop radial
cracks between tread lugs in the shoulder area. In certain
service conditions where excessive flexing of the tire sidewall
occurs, this may lead to a separation between components in
the shoulder/sidewall, which in turn may lead to a sudden
deflation of the tire. Should this condition occur, a vehicle
crash, personal injury, or death could be the result. Driving
at highway speeds should be avoided until the tires have been
inspected and replaced.
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Tread Separation Information
Passenger and light truck tire tread separations are an unfortunate
by-product of steel-belted radial tire technology. Due to the difficulty
in obtaining adhesion of steel to rubber there is a potential for
tread separation of all steel-belted radial tires. This is true
especially at high speeds in hot weather. Industry records verify
that tread belt separations are the most common mode of failure
of steel belted radial tires. They result from both design and manufacturing
defects. Read
More...
Proven
Safety Features Not
Being Used On Many Tires
With numerous reported deaths and injuries as the result of Cooper
tires many are left wondering if the injuries could have been prevented.
Safety features were developed decades ago to keep the treads from
peeling off but have not been found to be used in most lines of
tires that have linked to fatal accidents. Some safety advocates
claim these safety features could have prevented the deadly crashes
that occurred. So why aren’t these safety features being more
widely used by standard tire lines? Read
More...
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Tread
separation:Tread
separation:
The tread came flying off this (Cooper) tire as the Hervey
family drove at 70 miles an hour down I-40 to a deadly crash.
The same problem sparked the massive Bridgestone/Firestone
tire recall. Read
More...
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Anyone
who has purchased Cooper-made radial tires from January 1, 1985
until January 6, 2002 will be notified of their legal
rights by the New Jersey Superior Court in Middlesex County,
who is overseeing the nationwide settlement with Cooper Tire and
Rubber Company. This class action and related lawsuit claims that
Cooper did not disclose alleged adhesion problems between tire layers
or manufacturing methods to remove inner liner blisters.
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Article: From Marketplace CBC, January 16, 2001 |
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Larry
Tuckier's daughter Laura was killed when the tread on her
Cooper tire pulled off and her vehicle rolled over. The family
was awarded $3.4 million in damages. Details of problems at
the Cooper plant came out in testimony at the trial.
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While the focus has been on Firestone, this
really is a story about defective tires made by many companies over
many years.
The first tread
separation problem arose in 1978 when Firestone recalled
14-million Firestone 500 tires. It maintained there was no safety
defect in the tire.
Since then, the issue
of tire failures involving many companies has been kept quiet.
There were out of
court settlements with confidentiality agreements - and courts sealed
their records. But in the summer of 2000, the details of a fatal
accident were released to the public when a jury in Sardis, Mississippi
awarded $3.4 million to the family of a woman killed in the accident.
Thirty-three year
old Laura Tuckier died when the tread pulled off her Cooper tire
and her Ford Bronco rolled over.
Tuckier's parents
sued Cooper Tires for defective manufacturing causing tread separation.
As part of the lawsuit, former employees testified about shoddy
practices at the Cooper Tire plant.
One man testified
that he had seen a watch, a soda pop can and even chicken bones
cured into a tire - and scrap tires ready to be shipped out a good
tires.
Cooper Tires labels
the testimony as "outrageous allegations" by "embittered
former employees." The company is appealing the verdict. (See
Cooper
response for the company's detailed position on this
and other tire issues.)
Laura Tuckier's father,
Larry, says despite the jury verdict and the compensation award,
he does not feel that justice has been done.
"Money won't
replace a lost life and a valued person like Laura," Larry
Tuckier told Marketplace. "I believe the courts were fair but
no, we'll never get justice from it."
January
16, 2001 Cooper Tire’s Response
Read
More Articles...
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