THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

A TIRE SAFETY

By ANDY SMITH
Regional Safety Director

Summer is nearly here.
Holiday time is coming up.
Weekend trips will be the or-
der of the day. How are your
tires? Are you confused by
tire talk?

For months on end you
have been hearing and read-
ing about tire safety—wheth-
er the tires you buy as re-
placements and those on new
cars are safe enough. You
have been told that today’s
tires are as safe as present
technology can make them,
and you may have heard ru-

mours that brand new tires
_Ssometimes have defects that
can cause them to fail unex-
pectedly at any moment.

One viewpoint is that there
is really nothing wrong with
new tires, but that they usual-
ly fail due to abuse or because
they have been continued in
service beyond a reasonable
life expectancy. There also
have been charges that auto
makers buy tires strictly on
the basis of price, with insuf-
ficient regard for customer
safety, and that the after-mar-
ket tires available in. retail
stores are just as risky as
those delivered on the wheels
of new cars. Top tire industry
officials have been quoted to
the effect that there is no such
thing as an indestructible tire.
Any tire, they contend, can
be ruined by abuse and driv-
ers must take proper care of
tires to keep them safe. Then
again, you may have seen
magazine ads that say, “Here
at last is a tire that is prac-
tically indestructible!”

If you’re confused, join the
group. Almost everyone is
confused about tires and tire
safety in these days, and the
chances are that tire talk will
pile up more words and more

- confusion in the months to
come.

Meanwhile, what to do if
you need tires right now?
Are there any guidelines that
can help in selecting them?
Let’s look back a bit. If you’re

a fast highway driver today.

you'll have to admit that mod-
ern tires are far superior to
those we had 20 or even 15
years ago. Right after World
War II cotton fabric tires vir-
tually disappeared in this
country. Rayon took over, and
then nylon became very pop-
ular. Tire engineers develop-
ed carcases of marvelous
strength, new silent tread de-
signs, and tread rubber com-
pounded for long wear. The
Akron product was vastly im-
proved, and luckily, because
the Detroit product under-
went a transformation, with
higher horsepower than ever
before providing quick cars
with ravid acceleration and
tremendous top speeds, and
with power oovtions offering
the kind of manoeuverability
and braking that writes
squealing rubber messages on
pavement.

Equally shrill tire messages
were appearing in advertis-
ing. However, attempts are
being made to do something
about the highly-competitive,
oft-times shrill, and sometimes
misleading advertising of tires
in an attempt to restrict ad-
vertisers from overstating the
virtues of standard or sub-
standard tires with such labels
as extra-supreme, but tire-
buying remains a jungle for
the consumer. It is not hard
to see why. For .one example,
tire brands have increased.
At present there are more
than 900 brand names in the
American tire business, all
manufactured by only 17
United States tiremakers. It’s
not surprising that the con-
sumer has trouble with his
tire - buying decision, what

above the original tire, and
also tires of second line, third,
and fourth line, that are one,
two, or three notches below
the established level for new
ear tires.

The National Tire Dealers
and Retreaders Association,
Inc., charges that a first line
tire for a tire manufacturer
can be a completely different
product from the first line tire
that the same manufacturer
makes for one of his many
privately labelled distribu-
tors. If this is true, then how
do the twelve manufacturers
not among the Big 5 ever
manage to arrive at a stand-
ard for their products?

Then there is the ply-rating
controversy. This takes the
form of an advertised state-
ment that a two-ply tire has

more resistance to bruises
and other road hazards and
would wear longer, so the
cheaper tire can be said to be
equally safe as long as it lasts
— it just won’t last as long.

Also, the tire grade must be
suited to its intended use. One
tire official compared it to

DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!

This is not a pleasant story. It is a true record, however, of what happens when
a car strikes a tree at 55 miles an hour, a speed most motorists consider safe. It’s
the kind of crash that can happen to anyone—it’s the kind that can be prevented.
In the test crash conducted by safety experts dummies were used, and motion
pictures photographed at 1,000 frames a second revealed what happened in the split
second that the car hit the tree.
1/10th of a second, front bumper and chrome frosting of grill collapses, steel
slivers penetrate the tree 14 inches.
2/10th of a second, hood crumples, rises, smashes into the windshield; spinning
rear wheels leave the ground, grill disintegrates, fenders come into contact with the
tree forcing parts to splay out over the front door, driver’s body continues to move for-
ward with a force twenty times that of gravity — his body now weighs 3200 pounds.
His legs, held straight out, snap at the knees.
3/10th of a second, car’s front 24 inches is completely demolished, but the rear
end is still travelling at 35 miles per hour. The half-ton motor block crunches into the
tree, rear of the car like a bucking horse rises high enough to scrape bark off the

lower branches.

4/10th of a second, driver’s hands bend steering wheel shaft, lungs and intercostal

arteries are punctured.

5/10th of.a second, driver’s feet are ripped out of laced shoes, brake pedal shoe is
off at the floor, chassis bends in the middle, and driver’s head smashes into the wind- .
shield, rear of the car begins falling.
6/10th of a second, the entire body of the car is forced out of shape, hinges tear,
doors spring open, seat rams forward pinning driver against steering shaft. He is dead.
PLEASE DRIVE CAREFULLY.

with the multitude of quality
claims that surround these
hundreds of brands.

But that’s only part of the
problem. The tire industry
has inside designations that it
uses to describe quality,
grade, price level, and what-
ever. The public finds it diffi-
cult to cope with the fact that
a brand’s first-line tire may
not be its best, and that the
super, or the deluxe, is not
the top grade; that one brand
may use the word safety in
only its third line tire, while
another brand will emvloy
safety in the label of all but
its very best tire. —

Now unquestionably, orig-
inal equipment tires are of a
set specified quality, a volun-
tary industry standard as it
were, but in the United States
all tires for new cars come
from the Big 5 tire manufac-
turers and only them — Fire-
stone, General, Goodrich,
Goodyear, and U.S. Rubber.
It is conceivable that they
could also produce a quality
premium tire that is one notch

a four-ply rating. Claims have
been made that the expression
“ply rating’ has no under-
standable meaning any more.
It means one thing to one
company and a completely
different thing to another
company. An organization of
3,400 independent tire dealers
flatly states, “There is no
basis or standards for the es-
tablishment of a ply rating in
a tire.”

In the tire business the big
name makers produce as
many as six price levels, all
carrying the same famous
trademark, though within any
one maker’s line these price
differences may be connected
with a greater or lesser qual-
ity of durability, wear, quiet-
ness, skid resistance, and ap-
pearance. The manufacturers
emphatically declare that
safety does not vary from
their cheapest tire to their
most expensive. There is a
delicate matter of interpreta-
tion here. It certainly could
be reasoned that a new tire
with a thick tread would have

buying a hat. If it doesn’t fit
you, it doesn’t mean that the
hat is no good. Certainly tires
are better than they used to
be. Today’s big tire contro-
versy hinges, however, on the
question of whether tires have
been improved enough and
whether those available today
can take the punishment of
modern highway speeds. The
buyer of replacement tires
must be able to recognize

. tires that meet such perform-

ance requirements as being
adequate for legal speeds and
maximum loads.

In order to buy the right
tire for the job you expect to
do it is necessary to know a
few things about the product
itself. Here is the lowdown on
some of tiredom’s most con-
fusing points.

What is a tire ply? The
body of a tire contains fabric
made usually of rayon or ny-
lon. This woven material
forms layers, each called a
ply, on top of each other and
vulcanized together with rub-
ber. Factory equipment tires

have two plies, but the most
popular tires in the replace-
ment market are those with
four ply. Two ply tires often
are said by their manufac-
turers to have a four ply rat-
ing. How is the four ply rat-
ing achieved? By using heay-
ier yarn in each layer two
ply tire manufacturers have
produced a tire that they
claim is as strong as a four
ply tire.

This of course is sheer pro-
paganda. If the two ply tires
are as good as the four ply
tires why do they go to the
trouble and expense of pro-
ducing more and more true
four ply tires.

Therefore, I would recom-
mend that all replacement
tires be four ply tires.

Why within a given brand
do some tires cost so much
more than others of the same
size? Aside from the adver-
tising, sales inventory and
display costs of the more ex~
pensive tires, there are design
and _ construction features
that contribute to their higher
selling price. Premium and
first line tires are certainly
more rugged than second,
third, and fourth line tires.
The better tires have thicker
treads and higher quality
rubber. More care and preci-
sion may be involved in the
tire building process. Tread
designs may provide a quiet-
er, more skid-proof tire. Su-
perior appearance features
may be included.

Are expensive tires safer?
To this extent, the better
quality tires have more heavy
duty capabilities built into
them. Cheaper tires can be
more easily abused by being
pressed into service for which
they were not intended. Bar-
gain tires are not for the av-
erage driver — second, third,
and fourth line tires are for
successively lighter duty.
Fourth line tires could be
used if your vehicle is light
and lightly loaded all the time;
if you use your car only for
errand-running around town
at low speeds or on very short
low-speed trips into the sub-
urbs on excellent pavement,
and if you are the type of
driver not likely to abuse
tires by striking curbs, chuck
holes, and gutter trash. If
you intend to fill your car
with passengers or carry a
load of luggage or pull a trail-
er, you will need a premium
grade tire. es