Smart Tread News

Testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Competition, Foreign Commerce and Infrastructure unveiled new life-saving tire improvement

On June 3, 2004, Portland, Ore.-based Smart Tread, LLC testified before the United States Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Subcommittee on Competition, Foreign Commerce and Infrastructure, to unveil a significant new tire safety concept.

The hearing was designed to look at the status of the TREAD Act, passed in November 2000. The Committee wanted to learn how much of the Act has been implemented and whether or not it’s working. Smart Tread’s role in the hearing was to provide a look forward at what more can be done to enhance tire safety. The panels that testified were:

Panel 2: Don Shea, Rubber Manufacturers Association; Rob Strassburger, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers; Bruce Starr, Smart Tread; Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen

Smart Tread’s testimony detailed a new tire safety concept that will enable people to know when their tire tread is unsafe. (See attached Fact Sheet for details.) Starr explained how standardization of this visually obvious tread wear identifier will make our roads safer. Starr also represents Oregon State Senate District 15 as a part-time citizen legislator.

Each year 43,000 people are killed in highway accidents. Millions more are injured.[1]

________________________

Smart Tread, LLC is dedicated to developing technology and promoting ideas that save lives and prevent injuries by improving traffic safety on public roads and highways. The technology exists to create a standardized visually obvious tread wear indicator so people will know when their tire tread is unsafe.

Smart Tread is a small company located in Portland, Oregon. The company is held by the five founding members, the Safe and Sound Trust, and a group of individual, like-minded investors.

Improve traffic safety by helping to remove dangerously worn tires from our public roads and highways.

Two out of three drivers do not know how to tell if their tires are bald.[2] Nearly one in 10 vehicles on our roads today is driving with at least one bald tire.[3] NHTSA projects that in 2003 there were 230,199,000 registered vehicles.[4] That translates into nearly 23 million vehicles with at least one bald tire – a tire that is unable to function well in wet road conditions, a tire that is susceptible to puncture and blow-out, and a tire that has a higher chance of being under-inflated.

Utilizing existing technology, Smart Tread proposes to embed color into tire tread at 4/32 of an inch – a yellow warning layer; and a red layer at 2/32 of an inch – the point at which the tire is bald and no longer safe to be on the road. In the pictures below, one tire is a typical carbon black tire with tread worn down to 3/32 of an inch. The second tire has yellow embedded at 3/32 of an inch. This tread has also been worn down to 3/32 of an inch – the point at which the color becomes visible. One can see how simple it is to identify a worn tire using this colorized system.

[1] NHTSA, Feb. 2003 testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee.

[2] Rubber Manufacturers Association Tire Safety Fact Sheet 2004.

[3] DOT HS 809 359, October 2001.

[4] NHTSA 2003 Early Assessment Estimates of Motor Vehicle Crashes.