2000 | Paper warned of deadly tire tread separation
Months before the subject exploded into the national consciousness, the Sun-Times began warning on April 30, 2000, of potentially deadly tread separation on American-made radial tires.
"Dozens of people from the Chicago area and across the country have died in the last decade riding on automobile tires that tore apart from the inside out," reporter Mark Skertic wrote. "Tread belt separation -- in which the rubber tread breaks away from the steel belts within a radial tire -- has been blamed for at least 43 deaths since 1990, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found. But experts say that deadly toll is likely to be higher, given that no government agency, no consumer group, not even tiremakers themselves track the extent of the problem."
Skertic revealed that tiremakers fought hard to keep the tread-separation problem a secret. And he showed there were inexpensive ways they could have adopted -- but didn't -- to prevent the problem.
His work was the first to document tread problems with tiremakers other than Firestone, revealing safety concerns involving Cooper Tire & Rubber, Continental General Tire and Goodyear Tire & Rubber.
Until his stories appeared, federal safety officials said they were unaware the problem extended beyond Firestone tires, or that tiremakers weren't sending the government the service bulletins they routinely sent to tire dealers and repair shops, warning of safety problems.
They immediately demanded that tiremakers explain why they hadn't filed these bulletins with the government, as required by law.
That was the first in a series of changes prompted at least in part by the Sun-Times reports -- including the enactment by Congress in late 2000 of the most comprehensive new automotive-safety law since the 1960s.