Tire Blowouts

Tire blowouts are terrifying and a major cause of serious and fatal wrecks in Jacksonville and the surrounding area. Our personal injury lawyers help the victims of accidents caused by tire blowouts in the greater Jacksonville area.

The failure of a tire can be devastating because it is unexpected. Drivers traveling at any rate of speed may experience a sudden loss of control. Tire blowouts on trucks can be particularly hazardous because they can send thousands of pounds of metal skidding across the highway.

Liability for a tire blowout may lie with a driver, a tire manufacturer, a trucking company or a maintenance company.

In a 2003 report, the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) stated more than 78,000 accidents, over 10,000 serious injuries and more than 410 deaths a year are caused by tire blowouts and flat tires.

As a result of that report, NHTSA set up two new federal standards that required tire pressure monitoring systems on vehicles and updated requirements of passenger car and light truck radial tires.

Despite these improvements NHTSA note there were 719 fatal traffic crashes linked to defective tires in 2015.

The NHTSA notes blowouts are often caused by inadequate tread depth, tire underinflation, or extreme climatic conditions. An experienced Jacksonville car accident injury lawyer will investigate the causes of tire blow outs to determine the responsible parties.

The auto industry has been hit by multiple recalls of defective tires in recent years. The NHTSA lists tire and other recalls on its website.

The most infamous tire recall of recent years was the Ford/Firestone recall in 2000. Faulty tries caused an estimated 250 deaths and over 3,000 serious injuries. The combination of the recalled Firestone tires with the Ford Explorer was responsible for nearly half of the deaths and six million tires were recalled.

Almost every tire manufacturer in the U.S. has experienced tread separation problems, which are usually caused by improper design and manufacturing, as well as faulty repairs and installation.

In cases like this, a tire manufacturer or a car manufacturer or both can be held liable for deaths and injuries caused by a faulty tire. Our Jacksonville personal injury lawyers help people hurt by defective tires and other products.

With tires being such an important component for car and truck safety, tire manufacturers have a duty to ensure the tires they produce will not prematurely expire and cause accidents.

Recently, a leading official warned the tire recall system in the United States is broken.

At a meeting in Washington D.C. in 2015, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board said only one in five defective tires is being taken out of service through the recall system. More than half of recalled tires remain in use, according to investigators.

Dr. Rob Molloy of the NTSB’s Office of Highway Safety stated:

“Based on the work we did, that system is not working. It is completely broken.”

A report on NBC News stated tire manufacturers are not able to reach tire owners to warn them their tires are subject to a recall. Independent tire dealers are not required to register tires they sell with manufacturers. Most do not. Although 3.2 million tires were recalled between 2009 and 2013, most of the drivers using them were unaware of the recalls.

That means thousands of drivers may have defective tires in Florida and they are not aware of it.

Regulation and testing of tires can be cursory. Very little testing is carried out and there is a lack of regulations for this vital safety feature. Even the ratings that manufacturers give to tires are not verified by an independent body.

There are many kinds of dangerous and defective products. Tires are one of the worst products that can fail given the vital role they perform in keeping a vehicle on the road.

In the case of an injury or a death cause by a defective tire, call The Lawrence Law Group in Jacksonville. You may be entitled to compensation from a manufacturer, a trucking company or a mechanical company. Alternatively, a driver may be liable for failing to maintain his or her car tires. Call us at (904) 632-0077.