Tire Failure Can Cause Serious Personal Injury

Most of us take the safety and reliability of cars for granted. However, if you stop and think about it, motor vehicle tires withstand extreme forces of pressure and heat. When one of these tires fails, it can cause serious personal injuries such as closed head injuries, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, paralysis and many other serious personal injuries.

When motor vehicle tires are manufactured they go thru a process of “building”, the base part of the tire is built first and then thru various chemical and heating processes, one or more steal belts are imbedded in layers into the tire. Finally, the tread is applied.

Tire companies are required to perform extensive testing to ensure the safety of their tires. However, past cases has shown that the results of these tests are frequently never made public, either to the consumers or to National Transportation Administration.

The most common type of tire failure is a tread separation. This occurs when one steal belt separates from the rest of the tire, causing the catastrophic loss of air pressure. When this happens the driver of the vehicle invariably losses control and experiences a serious crash. These crashes almost always result in serious personal injury such as broken bones, spinal cord injuries resulting in paralysis and/or brain injuries.

We can all make our tires safer by regularly inspecting them and insuring they have the proper air pressure at all time. In addition, discarding old or warn tires as needed can also help avoid these serious personal injuries that a tire failure will cause.