NTSB criticizes tire recall process.

Coverage of the NTSB’s special investigation report on tire safety continues garnering significant media coverage. Rubber News (10/28, Moore) reports the agency has 11 recommendations to address the tire recall process. “The current tire registration process has proven to be ineffective in enabling tire manufacturers to compile complete and accurate customer contact information, which is vital to ensuring the success of a tire recall,” the NTSB said in the conclusions in its report. “We cannot change what happened in the past, and we cannot bring back the 539 fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and friends who lost their lives due to tire causes in 2013,” NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said. “But action on today’s recommendations can help bring those numbers down in future years,” he added. The NTSB’s recommendations to the NHTSA call for changes to standards, recall, and safety requirements.

        KXAN-TV Austin, TX (10/28, Ricke, 119K) reports that according to the NTSB, “close to two million tires could be too dangerous to be on the road right now, but the system for recalling those tires is broken.” Some 500 people are killed and 19,000 injured in the US each year in crashed involving faulty tire. T. Bella Dinh-Zarr, NTSB Vice Chairman asked “Why can’t be service tech tell me if my tires are recalled?” to which NTSB Highway Safety Investigator Robert Squire answered, “The main reason for that is there’s no easy way to do it.”

        Landline Magazine (10/28, Fisher, 607K) reports the NTSB found the registration and recall system for tires “ineffective” and the tire industry provides “insufficient guidance on tire aging.” In its report, NTSB also “found that manufacturers’ registration process was ineffective,” the article reports. The NTSB however found that “more than 75 percent of all recalled vehicles have been serviced,” yet “the rate specific to tire recalls can be as low as 20 percent,” the article adds. The NTSB called on the NHTSA to streamline the way it lists recalled tires as it confuses website users.

        The story was covered on local television by KOIN-TV Portland, OR (10/29, 5:25 p.m. PDT, 29K), WCSC-TV Charleston, SC (10/28, 7:12 p.m. EDT, 27K) and WVTM-TV Birmingham, AL (10/28, 4:46 p.m. CDT, 13K).