I. Introduction
Tire litigation is a highly complex and very specialized branch of vehicular product liability law. Unlike parties in other types of product liability litigation, tire manufacturers are professional litigants because of the sheer numbers of claims they are forced to defend every year. According to published figures accumulated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there are more than 8,000 traffic accidents a year involving death or serious bodily injury resulting from tire failures. Many of these tire failures are directly attributable to manufacturing defects, design defects, or the tire manufacturer’s failure to warn the end users of dangers inherent in their products. Many of these dangers have been known to the tire industry for years.
There is no such thing as inexpensive tire litigation. While there may be many local engineers or forensic scientists who will examine a wide range of consumer products, including tires, and render opinions as to the cause of failure, tire manufacturers dismiss reports of such “experts” out of hand because they know that these local experts cannot survive a Daubert challenge or cannot credibly compete with the defense experts who have practiced their art for years. This is not to suggest, however, that there exists a “pool” of qualified people who can or will render opinions on behalf of plaintiffs. Each case demands a detailed review of the facts and circumstances relating to the accident itself, the mode of tire failure, the identity of the manufacturer, the physical appearance of the tire, the service history of the tire, the usual operating conditions of the tire, the age of the tire and the severity of the injuries involved, before an appropriate expert can be selected. READ MORE |
I. Introduction
Steel belted radial tires find their origin in a 1947 Michelin patent. The design is characterized by the employment of very flexible sidewalls and a rigid steel cord-rubber composite tread structure. Early in the commercial development of the modern passenger steel belted radial tire, it became apparent that tires of this construction had an inherent tendency toward the development of separations at both of the steel belt edges and in the lower sidewalls, which separations could lead to catastrophic failure. Ironically, these problems had their mechanical origins in stress concentrations arising from the design features of rigid tread structure and flexible sidewalls - the very features that are responsible for the excellent performance characteristics.
The primary mode of catastrophic failure of the steel belted radial tire is separation of the tread from the outer steel belt following progressive belt edge separation. Separation usually starts at the outer steel belt edge and progresses circumferentially and axially in the rubber skim stock between the inner and outer steel belt from the inner steel belt structure under the influence of the centrifugal force acting on the tread/steel belt structure due to highway speed rotation of the tire/wheel assembly.
As noted above, this tendency to separate is acknowledged to be inherent in steel belted radial tires having steel belt edges consisting of sharp, sheared, cut edges of steel cord wires. The basic causes and mechanisms of separation and the design means of mitigating or preventing these separations have been recognized since the early commercial development of steel belted radial tires. READ MORE |