Goodyear Probe Weighed as Tires Are Linked to 15 Deaths
The government may open an investigation of light-truck tires made by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. linked to at least 15 U.S. traffic deaths, three months after widespread reports of tread separations on Firestone tires led to a nationwide recall.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is considering opening a preliminary evaluation of Goodyear tires as early as today, a source familiar with the review told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
A NHTSA spokesman would not comment on the agency’s plans.
The agency asked the tire maker for information on its Load Range E tires on Oct. 26 after the Los Angeles Times reported that a series of Goodyear tire failures, similar to those that plagued Bridgestone/Firestone Inc., had killed several people but had drawn little attention from federal safety regulators.
The tires have been used mainly on commercial vehicles--trailers, passenger vans and large sport-utility vehicles.
Goodyear spokesman Chris Aked said the Akron, Ohio-based tire maker had given information to NHTSA but had not been notified of any formal investigation.
Aked said the company has documented 30 accidents, 15 deaths and 125 injuries involving the Load Range E tires. He said all have been investigated and attributed not to defects but to problems such as overloading and under-inflation.
“We’ve said all along that we’re very confident in the integrity of the tires,” Aked said. “There is not any issue with the quality of the tires. There was no reason to take any action, as far as I’m concerned.”
Chris Spagnoli, an attorney in Santa Monica suing Goodyear over tread-separation accidents, said she has shared information gathered for her cases with NHTSA. “I think there is a lot of red flags about these tires, both from the accidents that we have information about and the public part of the deposition testimony,” she said.
Similar allegations led to Bridgestone/Firestone’s Aug. 9 recall of 6.5 million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires. NHTSA has received reports of 119 deaths and more than 500 injuries involving those Firestone tires.
Reports of tread separations also have plagued Continental General Tire Inc. Lawyers for accident victims suing the Charlotte, N.C.-based company say it deceived the government in a 1993 probe of its GT52S, Ameri-Way and Ameri-Tech tires, The Times reported Monday.
But NHTSA said it will not investigate the allegations because the five-year statute of limitations to penalize companies withholding information had passed.
In a statement, Continental insisted it “cooperated fully with all requests made by the NHTSA in its 1993 investigation.”
