Exploding Tires and Lovin’ Free Trade

Jim Capo
JBS
Wednesday, Aug 6, 2008

In a world of information overload and a dearth of critical thinking it’s easy to misrepresent the facts. Two recent “news” items make the point.

Exploding Tires

The dramatic ABC 20/20 News report “Aged Tires: A Driving Hazard?” aired back in May. Since many people on the Internet have stopped watching such old school news sources, there is sometimes a lag in having such a story make your radar screen. In my case, it was only a week ago that I learned from a concerned friend that I was at risk of being killed by my car’s tires.

My friend, who is no slouch at analyzing information when he has the time, had taken a pass on critiquing the ABC story before urgently forwarding it to my email box. This was because he himself had been alerted to the story by a newsletter writer he generally respects for his critical thinking ability.

All would be fine if the newsletter writer had stuck to a basic point like, “Hey, why pay full price for a ‘new’ tire that has been aging away in a warehouse for several years?” Instead however, he titled his article, Exploding “New” Tires. While in his defense it could have been his own rushed opinion on the matter, he closed his review of the story in dramatic fashion: “Still not convinced? Watch this video. Horrifying.”

If you turn off the thinking side of your brain and stick with the visuals in the ABC 20/20 piece, it is indeed a horrifying story: car wrecks, simulated exploding tires, suspicious sounding merchants and a nervous looking industry spokesman caught on film. Though ABC covered their tracks by giving their tire story a title ending with a question mark, there is no question as to how they wanted viewers to answer their hypothesis. “Hazard? Good grief! We’re lucky to be alive.”

Employing just a little bit of critical thinking, we can see how ABC has pulled one over on those tempted by sensationalism.

The story opens with a tale of death to create the gravitas the ABC editors are looking for. A young man has died in a car crash/rollover. Police in Canada say he lost control due to tire failure. It turns out that the tires his dad bought for his SUV five years ago had already been sitting on a store self for four years, making them nine years old at the time the investigators say one of them disintegrated while driving. In a lawsuit (mentioned later in the story), a jury awarded the boy’s family damages from the tire retailer. With death then as prologue, the ABC reporter goes on to frame his issue by making the statement: “The evidence of the problem can be seen every day on the nation’s highways.” [Camera pan to a stark image of the debris from a peeled off tire tread laying alongside a highway.]

What is wrong with this picture? First, the pealed off tire tread that made a cameo appearance several times in the story is most likely a truck tire retread, which is a common item of litter on our highways totally unrelated to the tire shelf-life issue. Second, and most importantly, if the age of the tires were a factor in the teenager’s accident, there were three other tires of the same age and life experience that could have been anaylzed from the crashed vehicle. This would have been the scientifically appropriate path of investigation to pursue. Since no mention was made of the results of any such testing, it is more than likely that the other tires showed no signs of imminent failure or unusual degradation.

It is also interesting that although the divorced father kept good records on his tire purchases, no mention was made of how many miles had been put on the vehicle over the five years the “aged” tires had been on it. All we really know from the way the story was told is that a tire outlet store, still in operation and so likely covered by an adequate commercial insurance policy, paid an “undisclosed sum” to settle a claim by a customer whose son had died while driving on tires sold by the retailer. In our litigious society this is news? In any case, note that the reporter was not able to state that the settlement was based on the claim that the tires sold were “aged.” Making a legal (not scientific) determination that a tire in service for 5 years may have been defective and a liability to the retailer involved cannot lead to a conclusion that “aged” tires kill.

What about the report from Britain’s Tyre Industry Council recommending that tires over 6 years old not be sold and that tires over 10 years old from date of manufacture should not be used regardless of remaining tread life? The most obvious problem here is that even following such a stringent warning would not have saved the young man whose tires were only 4 years old at time of sale and only 9 years old at the time of his accident. A second problem is that the Tyre Industry Council’s chief financial support comes from tire manufacturers. These manufactures have a clear economic incentive to lobby for age limits on tire sale and usage. The fact that the British trade group has made such a statement, while similar trade groups in the U.S. have not, could merely be related to a higher percentage of tire manufacturers in the United States also being retailers who would rather not be bothered by expiration dates on their stock.

The recommendation from Ford Motor Company that tires over 6 years old not be used is also self-serving and begs for scientific evidence. Remember this is the same Ford Motor Company that when faced with a rash of litigation on rollovers of its popular Ford Explorer SUV, tried to deflect blame to the Firestone tires supplied on the vehicles.

What should be obvious to anyone who has driven a car for many years is that there is simply no epidemic of people dying on our highways from exploding tires. That ABC news was able to find so many “aged” tires on store racks is actually an indication that people have very little to fear from this alleged threat. You probably have a far greater chance of dying in a vehicle accident caused by a bad mechanic, or your own inattention to your tire’s visible quality than from a retailer selling you an old tire as new. (For those who feel they must worry about something however, scroll down to the answer to question #5 to see what Goodyear Aviation recommends as the maximum life for an airplane’s tire.)

Lovin’ Free Trade

This is the title of a piece in Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) from July 28th. At least they had the decency to present it in their opinion section. That does not stop the editorialists from basing their case on misleading statistics.

The IBD editorial, which knowingly commits the crime of conflating true free trade with cartel creating trade pacts deceptively named as “free trade agreements (FTA’s),” pulls its information from three sources:

• The Bureau of Economic Analysis: an arm of the US Commerce Department — the same department that negotiates our trade pacts
• The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM): the trade industry group dominated by multinational corporations seeking to establish trade cartels for themselves through trade pacts.
• The Petersen Institute: the economic think tank named in honor of Peter G. Petersen — former head of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR); an outfit that never saw a trade cartel pact it didn’t like, since they are ultimately designed to achieve the group’s objective of political merger through economic merger.

Again, this is an opinion piece so they have no obligation to present opposing views to their own. However, the core of their argument is based on a statement made in a NAM press release that breaks down to this: In the 1st quarter of 2008 the U.S. had a $0.5 billion dollar surplus with our FTA partners. We had a $176 billion deficit with our non-FTA trading partners. Therefore: FTA’s are good for our country.

Of course this is one of those false logic statements like: All boys wear blue. Chris wears blue. Therefore, Chris is a boy.

The really big laugher is the data report itself that all the players are working from. In line #55 of the Excel spreadsheet table you will see an item labeled, “Statistical discrepancy (sum of above items with sign reversed).” What does this mean? It means that since various statistical methods are used to arrive at the economic data presented, statistical errors can creep in which must be adjusted for such that the calculation tables used still balance. In other words a fudge factor must be used to square the books each quarter. The intention of the statisticians is that more firm numbers will eventually be available to make the historical data more accurate. For now though we fudge by totaling up all the discrepancies, then simply reverse them back out to make our numbers balance to zero. Think of it as coming out with an imbalance in your check book and then making a final entry for the month to eliminate that imbalance on the assumption that in some future month things should work out just right.

Here is the funny part. For the first quarter of 2008 that statistical discrepancy line item required adding a fictitious $52 billion dollar surplus to our reported trade numbers. (This is 30 percent of the $176 billion dollar deficit reported) This means NAM is touting a $0.5 billion dollar surplus from a set of numbers that has had a $52 billion dollar fudge factor added in. That is, the fudge factor the report could be off by is 100 times greater than the surplus NAM claims we have with our FTA partners!

Oh, and by the way, an entry for “financial derivatives” was not yet available for the 1st quarter 2008 report. That might be an important number.

Our closing critical thinking tip: Next time you hear someone talking about economic statistics generated by our government think, “Soviet Union five- year plan.”

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6 Responses to “Exploding Tires and Lovin’ Free Trade”

1. Illuminated1234 Says:
   August 6th, 2008 at 6:47 am

   Funny… I just got the same email! I just forwarded this article to the people that were on the email list…

   Ironic this story is here. Kudos!

2. Mark Says:
   August 6th, 2008 at 9:29 am

   Senior Nasa Official Clark McClelland who last week backed up the statements of astronaut Ed Mitchell regarding an military/alien alliance, has now updated his site this week with an artists rendering of what he saw during a classified shuttle mission. This is an explosive leak of classified information, and Clark definitely has the credentials to back his statements up!

   Be sure to check out the “incidents” link, as Clark has a lot of juicy revelations regarding many space missions!

   The link is here;

   http://www.hismailroom.com

3. BeTrueSeekTruth Says:
   August 8th, 2008 at 5:57 am

   Not to get Biblical here but… didn’t Jesus refer to Satan as the father of the lie? ( John 8:44 ). Then in 1 John 5:19 it states the the “whole world lies in the power of the evil one”.
   Whether Satan exists or not is irrelevant here. Even if Satan is a metaphor for darkness or dark power the point here is compelling.

4. Stephanie Says:
   August 8th, 2008 at 6:30 pm

   I watched a nascar race last weekend that was run entirely on rain tires that were manufactured in 2001. Do you think Goodyear would have risked the lives of the 43 drivers who participated in this event if there was any truth to this? Just one more pile of fear mongering bullshit added to the already monumentally high mound of fear mongering BS.

5. Karmakaze Says:
   August 10th, 2008 at 3:36 am

   @Article

   Critical thinking IS important, and so is not believing everything you read, but rather researching for yourself.

   For example, this article seems to point out yet another case of MSM hyperbole, creating a threat where there is none. So I went to ABC’s website to watch the story for myself. I also searched around to see what else I could find, and I noticed some very interesting things.

   “Police in Canada say he lost control due to tire failure.”

   Not quite the whole truth. The police said that a tire delaminated and the tread separated from the tire, causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle. Pictures of the tire with the entire tread gone were shown. The ABC story then talked about HOW this happens and mentioned studies that determined WHY this happened.

   Rubber is a perishable substance. Studies have shown that after as little as six years, the chemical composition of the rubber binding the tread to the rest of the tire can degrade, causing the tire to delaminate and shed it’s tread. At highway speeds this can result in very severe and sometimes fatal accidents. Several tests were shown where tires did exactly that, not only on test rigs, but in controlled vehicle experiments.

   I’m sure everyone here has seen a dried out old dishwashing glove that when new was very stretchy and strong, but after sitting in a shed or cupboard for awhile just tears apart rather than stretching. This is what they are talking about.

   Of course the author of this article jumps right over that section where it is explained, and talks about the jury awarding damages to the family of a victim.

   This is where critical thinking comes in – the author shows he uses none!

   “Second, and most importantly, if the age of the tires were a factor in the teenager’s accident, there were three other tires of the same age and life experience that could have been anaylzed from the crashed vehicle. This would have been the scientifically appropriate path of investigation to pursue. Since no mention was made of the results of any such testing, it is more than likely that the other tires showed no signs of imminent failure or unusual degradation.”

   He just told us a jury awarded damages, and then suggests that the fact he didn’t see any test results of the other tires on the vehicle means that they showed no signs of degradation. The fact he assumes a lack of evidence is evidence of lack aside, this is patently absurd. A jury trial was held. Surely the plaintiffs or the defense would have commissioned such tests and presented them to the jury. A far more reasonable assumption is that the jury saw such evidence and it contributed to their decision that the retailer was at fault.

   More importantly, insisting that three tires showed no unusual degradation (of course he is assuming that age degradation that is expected would be called unusual – more of those critical thinking skills, I’m sure) does not change the cause of the fourth tire’s failure. I am CERTAIN that evidence for how THAT tire came to delaminate would have been presented, and the jury seems to have accepted that it was due to excessive age.

   So why does this pro-critical thinking author just dump critical thinking skills so easily? Because it suits his argument! Let’s continue:

   “It is also interesting that although the divorced father kept good records on his tire purchases, no mention was made of how many miles had been put on the vehicle over the five years the “aged” tires had been on it.”

   Or, perhaps they just did not mention it in the story because it was explored at trial (unless the author is suggesting the retailer did not defend itself in court) and was rejected as an explanation by the jury.

   “First, the pealed off tire tread that made a cameo appearance several times in the story is most likely a truck tire retread, which is a common item of litter on our highways totally unrelated to the tire shelf-life issue.”

   Firstly, are truck tires not made of rubber? It seems this authors critical thinking skills don’t extend to considering the possibility that aged truck tires might suffer the same degradation.

   Secondly he mentions a throwaway shot of rubber tread littering the road, but does not mention the next scene where a woman narrowly avoided an accident when her tire delaminated (it is seen being changed in the background) when asked how old the tire was, she responded “probably four years old” and then we are told she found out later it was actually 12 years old.

   Then the next scene shows a warehouse full of vehicles that crashed when aged tires failed. Oh, did I mention this author failed to tell you that there is a whole LOT of litigation going on over accidents caused by aged tires? Interestingly, they seem to mostly be SUV’s. This is probably because such high center of gravity vehicles are far more prone to roll over when subjected to violent turns, as can happen when a tire delaminates (also shown in the story and not mentioned by the author).

   “The most obvious problem here is that even following such a stringent warning would not have saved the young man whose tires were only 4 years old at time of sale and only 9 years old at the time of his accident.”

   Now this is an interesting one. The author never mentions that testing has shown that tires as little as six years old can suddenly delaminate due to aging, then claims that a warning from “Britain’s Tyre Industry Council” that is, an organisation representing the interests of tire manufacturers was “stringent” by saying that tires older than 6 years not be sold, and older than 10 not be used.

   Critical thinking says that if a tire aged 6 can delaminate, suggesting it not be sold but that it CAN be used for four more years, is NOT a stringent warning.

   So why call it that? To mislead you into thinking that 9 year old tires would have ended up on this vehicle even if REALLY stringent rules were put in place. The fact that a REALLY stringent rule would probably be closer to not being sold if it was more than 2 or 4 years old at time of sale and not be used at all if older than 8 years WOULD have saved this young man and his friend’s life, well that the author doesn’t want you to know.

   Two years of driving on potentially unsafe tires is probably rather lax though, so such rules would probably be even MORE stringent, if consumer safety was really important.

   “A second problem is that the Tyre Industry Council’s chief financial support comes from tire manufacturers. These manufactures have a clear economic incentive to lobby for age limits on tire sale and usage.”

   So he tells you they have a financial incentive to reduce tire lifespan. True, so how can he say that 6 and 10 is stringent when testing would suggest 2 and 6 would actually save lives AND result in even HIGHER sales? Critical thinking informs me that if sales were the motivating factor, that is what they would have warned. Why they don’t probably has more to do with product liability lawsuits than sales figures.

   Or perhaps it is because people would be less willing to pay the price they do for tires knowing they can only get 6 years max use out of them, so maybe protecting their profit margin is more important to the manufacturers than protecting lives. Critical thinking tells me that this is a very reasonable assumption.

   “The recommendation from Ford Motor Company that tires over 6 years old not be used is also self-serving and begs for scientific evidence.”

   Yes it does, which is why this author did not tell you about that evidence! As I said before the story itself explained that studies had shown that this was a reasonable age limit, but by not mentioning it now he can complain about there being no evidence! Critical thinking indeed!

   “What should be obvious to anyone who has driven a car for many years is that there is simply no epidemic of people dying on our highways from exploding tires.”

   Or maybe the author just doesn’t see them, just like he didn’t see the warehouse full of destroyed vehicles shown in the story? Or maybe this has been a problem for a very long time, not something that has just cropped up? Yes, his critical thinking skills are as good as ever! Does HE present any evidence that shows it DOESN’T happen? Oh no, not Mr Critical Thinking! He is not about presenting evidence, he is about suppressing it! Like all the evidence mentioned in the story for example!

   “That ABC news was able to find so many “aged” tires on store racks is actually an indication that people have very little to fear from this alleged threat.”

   Critical Thinking Overdrive! Just like the fact that so much meat is found on the shelves containing E. Coli and Salmonella only shows you have nothing to fear from food contamination!

   So after researching THIS article’s claims about the story, and finding them to be at best misleading and at worst an outright fabrication, I am now going to see if the story itself has merit. I never take any article or story at face value, and the ABC story is no different.

   So the question is, is tire age an issue?

   “What is meant by “tire aging”?

   The structural integrity of a tire can degrade over an extended period of time. When that occurs, tires are more prone to catastrophic failure, which could, at best, cause an inconvenience, or, at worst, lead to a crash. The degradation of a tire occurs over time, mostly the result of a chemical reaction within the rubber components. That aging process can be accelerated by heat and sunlight.

   Does climate have an effect on the aging of tires?

   NHTSA research suggests that tires age faster in warmer climates. Exposure to high ambient temperatures can accelerate the tire aging process, which could contribute to tire failures, including tread separations. Environmental conditions like exposure to sunlight and coastal climates, as well as poor storage and infrequent use can hasten the aging process.”

   So, yes tires can age and LACK of use can hasten it, as can warmer climates. So, if age is an issue, why are people not dying all the time?

   “Are some vehicles more prone to tire aging problems?

   Tire aging is generally not an issue with vehicles that are driven regularly. Tires will wear out and need to be replaced before aging becomes a safety concern. But those with occasional use – like recreational vehicles or collector cars, for example – could be susceptible. The spares on all vehicles also are prone to aging problems because they seldom get used or replaced. In those instances, the structural integrity of the tire may be weakened – and potentially hazardous – even though the tire still has a great deal of remaining tread.”

   Ah! So a tire sold relatively soon after manufacture, and in use regularly is likely to wear out BEFORE aging becomes an issue, BUT if the tire is already old BEFORE it is ever used, then aging may affect the tire before wear would cause it to be replaced! Now that makes sense, and it also makes sense why tires that are as much as six years old at time of sale can fail so dramatically without warning!

   So who is telling us this? Why it is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration!

   http://www.safercar.gov/portal.....d17898RCRD

   So, who would you rather believe, the author who misleads as to the content of the ABC story, misleads at to the nature of the problem, and misleads as to the science behind it, or the organisation that was empowered to research this issue and make recommendations based upon that research?

   I know who I believe!

6. abel chavarria Says:
   August 12th, 2008 at 4:11 am

   hey euro dropped to 1.48 against the dollar…oh well maybe just mabe things will get just a little better