Defective Tires Turn Highways Into Deadly Crash Scenes

A Blind Spot In The Replacement-Tire Market

Tracy’s investigations on behalf of injured clients have exposed a dangerous blind spot in the replacement-tire market.

Imported tires, private-label brands, online sellers, weak traceability, noncompliant markings, counterfeit molds, and financially fragile importers can leave American drivers with little idea who actually made the tire beneath them.

Where The Rubber Meets The Road

A tire is the only part of a vehicle that touches the road. That thin contact patch, roughly the size of a human hand, carries the vehicle’s weight, absorbs heat, grips the pavement, sheds water, endures potholes, and keeps a driver in control at highway speeds. When a tire fails, the crash often begins before the driver has time to understand what happened.

A Tire Failure With Little Warning

The danger is not theoretical. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says 511 people died in tire-related crashes in 2024. [1]

Federal crash researchers have long warned that tire problems in the moments before a crash leave drivers with an extremely small window to avoid disaster.

A blowout, tread separation, belt failure, or sudden loss of pressure can throw a vehicle into a loss-of-control event before steering, braking, or electronic stability control can save it. [2]

Not Every Tire Failure Is A Blowout

The public often refers to all tire failures as “blowouts.” Crash investigators are more precise.

A blowout is a sudden loss of air pressure.

Tread separation occurs when the outer tread or steel-belt package begins to peel away from the tire body.

A tire can also fail because of bead unseating, sidewall rupture, belt-edge separation, internal degradation, manufacturing defects, poor repairs, underinflation, overloading, excessive heat, impact damage, or age.

When Control Disappears

The result can be the same: a vehicle veers, fishtails, rolls over, leaves the roadway, or crosses into oncoming traffic. In SUVs, vans, pickups, motorhomes, buses, and other vehicles with a high center of gravity, a tire failure can cause a rollover within seconds.

What Federal Standards Can and Cannot Do

Federal safety standards exist because tires have killed people by failing in predictable ways.

NHTSA adopted Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 138, which requires tire pressure monitoring systems on new light vehicles, and FMVSS No. 139, which strengthened performance requirements for passenger car and light-truck radial tires. Both rules took effect in 2007. [2]

TPMS was designed to warn drivers when one or more tires are dangerously underinflated, generally by 25 percent or more below the manufacturer’s recommended cold inflation pressure. [3]

The Defect You Cannot See

Those standards save lives, but they do not eliminate crashes involving defective tires.

TPMS may warn of low pressure, but it cannot detect every internal structural defect.

A tire can look normal on the outside while the rubber compounds, steel belts, or internal bonding begin to fail. NHTSA warns that tire aging cannot be detected simply by looking at a tire.

Rubber and other components change over time because of service, storage, sunlight, heat, and environmental exposure.

Vehicles driven infrequently, recreational vehicles, collector cars, 15-passenger vans, and other low-mileage vehicles may be especially vulnerable because their tires can age out before they wear out. [1]

The Firestone Warning

The most notorious modern example remains the Firestone-Ford Explorer crisis.

NHTSA investigated Firestone Wilderness AT tires after reports of tread-belt separations, particularly on Ford Explorers.

The investigation became a national scandal because sudden tread separations on SUVs could trigger rollovers.

NHTSA’s Firestone report documented deaths, injuries, claims, and the pattern of failures that helped reshape federal tire regulation. [4]

The Goodyear G159 Case

More recently, the Goodyear G159 motorhome tire case showed how tire defects can remain dangerous long after production ends.

In a 2022 safety recall report, Goodyear recalled 173,237 G159 tires in size 275/70R22.5 produced from 1996 through 2003.

The recall report stated that tread separations can lead to loss of vehicle control and increased crash risk. [5]

NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation concluded that a safety-related defect existed in Goodyear G159 tires used on Class A motorhomes and that the failure could cause crashes with catastrophic consequences, including death and serious injury.

The agency said Goodyear had received claims for eight fatalities involving failures of the G159 tire on RVs. [6]

The Fight Over What Caused The Failure

Goodyear disputed the existence of a safety defect, arguing that the failures were caused by factors such as overloading and underinflation.

NHTSA’s conclusion was different. That tension is common in defective tire litigation.

Manufacturers often argue that the tire was abused, overloaded, run underinflated, repaired improperly, or driven after impact damage.

Todd Tracy’s team of automotive engineers examines the tire carcass, belt edges, skim stock, oxidation, adhesion, production records, adjustment data, warranty claims, and prior incidents to determine whether the tire failed because of a defect.

Beyond Driver Error

The technical details matter because a defective tire crash can be misread as driver error.

The first police report may say the driver “lost control.” That may be true, but incomplete.

The real question is why control was lost. A tread separation on a rear tire can create a yaw that feels like the back of the vehicle suddenly stepped sideways.

A steer-tire failure on a bus, motorhome, or truck can cause the vehicle to pull violently off course.

A tire failure at interstate speed can leave skid marks, gouges, tread fragments, rim damage, rollover evidence, and a wrecked vehicle’

But the tire itself may hold the key.

The Recall Gap

The danger persists because tire recalls do not always reach those at risk. NHTSA says owners can search for vehicle, car seat, tire, and equipment recalls, and that consumer complaints can help the agency identify patterns that lead to investigations and recalls. [7]

The National Transportation Safety Board has criticized weaknesses in tire registration and recall systems, poor consumer tire maintenance, a lack of clear guidance on tire aging, and barriers to technology that could prevent or reduce tire-related crashes. [8]

Why Tire Identification Numbers Matter

The recall system also depends on consumers and sellers knowing exactly which tires are on a vehicle.

Tire Identification Numbers matter. A full TIN reveals the plant, tire size, optional code, and week and year of production.

Without it, owners may never know that a tire in service has been recalled.

A New Recall, Same Old Danger

Defective tires are not only an old problem.

In 2025, Continental Tire the Americas filed a recall for certain tires after receiving market complaints involving partial tread detachments.

The company reported that a nonconforming tread-base rubber compound with insufficient sulfur levels could prevent proper adhesion.

The recall report warned that affected tires could experience partial or full tread detachment, increasing the risk of crashes. [9]

Retreads Are Not Automatically Illegal

Retreading itself is a legitimate industry, especially for commercial truck tires. The problem is not that a tire is retreaded.

The problem is a retread that is unsafe, improperly marked, falsely represented, or sold as something it is not.

NHTSA says all new or retreaded tires sold or imported into the United States must comply with applicable federal motor vehicle safety standards and regulations.

For tires subject to a federal safety standard, the DOT symbol on the sidewall is the manufacturer’s or retreader’s certification of compliance.

NHTSA has also said that retreaded passenger car tires must bear a DOT symbol from the retreader, and that retreaded passenger car tires without that symbol may not legally be imported.

For truck tires, the regulatory picture is more complicated.

NHTSA has stated that no federal safety standard applies to retreaded truck tires, but finished retreads must still carry a tire identification number that identifies the retreader and related information.

The Fatal Crash Chain Begins Inside The Tire

That is the central lesson from defective-tire crashes.

The failure may begin invisibly inside the tire, but the consequences unfold in public on highways, rural roads, bridge decks, and interstates crowded with families.

A tire that should have carried a vehicle safely through an ordinary trip can instead become the first link in a fatal chain.

What Drivers Can Do

Todd Tracy says the prevention steps are simple but often ignored: check tire pressure monthly, inspect tread depth, replace tires that are worn, damaged, aged, recalled, or showing vibration, bulging, uneven wear, or noise, and never assume a tire is safe just because it still has tread.

NHTSA advises that tires are unsafe once the tread reaches 2/32 of an inch and warns that poor tire maintenance can lead to flats, blowouts, and tread separation. [1]

But maintenance is only part of the story.

Some crashes happen because a tire never should have been sold, should have been recalled sooner, or should have been designed and manufactured with better margins of safety.

When that happens, the wreckage tells a larger story. It is not merely about a driver who lost control. It is about a safety system that failed at the one place where the vehicle meets the road.

References

[1] NHTSA reports 511 tire-related fatalities in 2024, warns that poor maintenance can lead to flats, blowouts, and tread separation, and explains the risk of tire aging. ([NHTSA][1])

[2] NHTSA’s crash causation research reported pre-TPMS estimates of 414 fatalities, 10,275 nonfatal injuries, and 78,392 crashes annually from flat tires or blowouts; it also explains why tire problems immediately before a crash leave little time for avoidance. ([CrashStats][2])

[3] NHTSA’s TPMS evaluation explains that FMVSS No. 138 requires light vehicles to detect 25 percent underinflation and warns drivers through a dashboard alert.

[4] NHTSA’s Firestone report documented claims involving deaths and injuries associated with Firestone Wilderness AT tire failures. ([NHTSA][3])

[5] Goodyear’s 2022 Part 573 Safety Recall Report for the G159 tire states that tread separations can cause loss of vehicle control and increase crash risk.

[6] NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation concluded that the Goodyear G159 tire used on Class A motorhomes had a safety-related defect linked to loss of control, catastrophic consequences, and multiple fatalities.

[7] NHTSA explains that consumers can search for recalls, report safety problems, and that complaints can lead to investigations and recalls. ([NHTSA][4])

[8] The NTSB’s passenger vehicle tire safety investigation identified problems with tire registration and recall systems, tire aging risk, poor maintenance practices, and barriers to safety technology. ([NTSB][5])

[9] Continental Tire’s 2025 safety recall report stated that a nonconforming tread base rubber compound could cause partial or full tread detachment and increase the risk of a crash. ([NHTSA][6])

[1]: https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle-safety/tires “Tire Safety Ratings and Awareness | TireWise | NHTSA”

[2]: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811617 “Microsoft Word – 8603_TireRelatedFactorsDuringCrash_04-20-12_v1a.docx”

[3]: https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/firestonereport.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com “EA00-023: Firestone Wilderness AT Tires”

[4]: https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls “Check for Recalls: Vehicle, Car Seat, Tire, Equipment | NHTSA”

[5]: https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SIR1502.pdf “Special Investigation Report: Selected Issues in Passenger Vehicle Tire Safety”

[6]: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2025/RCLRPT-25T017-8442.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com “Part 573 Safety Recall Report 25T017”