Tire Safety

Proven Tire 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?

Cutting costs are one of the reasons that tire companies may be reluctant to use the safety features. Although the safety measures cost just a few cents to more than a dollar per tire, pressures from the automakers to cut costs may have lead many tire companies to be reluctant about the use of the safety features. Designed to prevent the steel belts in radial tires from separating, that can lead to treads peeling off, records show that the manufacturers know the safety wraps are effective. Most tire makers have not included these because of the added cost and weight to the tires.

Tire industry officials maintain that safety wraps are not necessary to maintain the structural integrity of most models of tires, rather just in high-performance tires. But after at least 15 deaths and 120 injuries in tire-related crashes Goodyear started to put cap plies in its truck tires, and Beale Robinson responded that, “It’s a more robust construction, and as such, gives us a greater safety margin for abuse.” The president of Strategic Safety, a Virginia-based research firm that advises plaintiffs in tire cases agrees that cap plies are a necessary precaution, “Cap plies keep coming up as the solution to tread problems despite these tire companies’ individual claims that the device has nothing to do with safety.” A former tire industry official and consultant in Akron, Ohio thinks that safety wraps “will cover up a lot of variations and deviations in your workmanship and even in your design. It’s a real good protector,” he said, “I don’t care what tire it is.”

In 1974, a patents assigned to Uniroyal compared the durability of tires with and without nylon caps. This U.S. Patent and Trademark Office application found that tires with nylon plies withstood speed 56% higher than the unprotected tires. Ever since radial tires have been used, tread separations have been plaguing the tire industry. The tire engineers recognized early on the dangerous propensity for tires to break apart when the adhesive bond between the belts deteriorate and allows the tread to peel away.

The radial tire’s belts are bound together by a rubber adhesive that can be compromised when production flaws or road damage occurs. When exposed to heat and stress, the adhesion can weaken even further and allow the separation to grow. In a 1988, Uniroyal Goodrich told the National Highway Safety Administration in a letter that, “Because radial tires are made of many raw materials and are a complicated assemblage of parts, it is to be expected that normal production of radial tires will contain some level of tires which will fail prematurely because of tread or belt separation.”

Cost appears to be the reason many tire companies still do not have the safety features. The tire industry suffers from overcapacity and tire companies face intense cost pressures and meager profits. Any added cost to a tire is taken very seriously, and with an extra $.50 to $1 per tire, it adds up when million of tires are being produced. Now that Cooper tires has found themselves in the middle of legal trouble because of the safety of their tires, maybe they will start considering the extra cost of safety features.

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