What is the purpose of Smart Tread?
Smart Tread’s goal is to improve traffic safety by helping to remove dangerously worn tires from our public roadways.

Why is a visually-obvious tread wear indicator important?
Drivers need to know when their tire tread is too worn for safe driving. There are currently two methods for detecting tire wear:

1. THE PENNY TEST: With Lincoln’s head upside-down, place a penny in the groove of the tread. If you can see Lincoln’s head, the tire needs to be replaced.
   
   
   
2. THE WEAR BAR TEST: Many tires have wear bars molded into the tread. When worn down so as to reveal the solid bar running across the tread, the tire must be replaced.
   
   
   
   Importantly, two out of three drivers don’t know how to judge whether their tires are unsafe. (Rubber Manufacturers Association, April 2004)
   
   National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) statistics show that nearly one in 10 vehicles on our roadways today has at least one bald tire (2/32” of tread remaining). NHTSA calculates that in 2003, nearly 23-million vehicles traveled our roadways with at least one bald tire.

What do we risk by driving on a bald tire?
If a tire has just 2/32” of tread remaining, it is unable to function well in wet road conditions. It is susceptible to puncture and blowout. It has a higher chance of being under-inflated.

Didn’t Congress recently address tire safety with the passage of The TREAD Act?
Partially. The TREAD Act passed in 2000. It addressed some tire safety concerns such as tire pressure and endurance. But it did not address tread wear indicators at all.

Is visually-obvious tread wear detection really as simple as Smart Tread suggests?
Yes. The technology exists to create a simple tread wear indicator system. It’s already used for coloring boutique tires. Also, Michelin and Goodyear make tires for F-5 and F-16 fighter jets using a similar color safety system. This technology could easily be applied to all tires in the form of a visually-obvious treadwear indicator that would tell drivers when their tires are worn beyond safety.

Will this approach to tread wear detection increase the cost of manufacturing, thereby increasing the price to consumers?
A boutique tire called The Red Scorcher features a layer of red between layers of black. It sells for about 3.6% more than a similar tire without the red layer. This suggests that the cost of this particular technology to the manufacturer is minimal.

If this idea is so simple, why hasn’t it been done already?
The answer is unclear. There’s no good reason to avoid using a visually-obvious tread wear indicator that all drivers can recognize and interpret. It already exists on boutique tires and aircraft tires. Smart Tread believes the greater good will be served by bringing this colorizing technology to the driving public. That’s why Smart Tread has undertaken this mission.

What happens if this approach to visually-obvious tread wear detection becomes standard on all tires?
Consumers will be better educated and further empowered to judge when their tires are unsafe. Families will be safer on our roadways. Injuries will be prevented. Property damage will be reduced. And best of all, lives will be saved.