HILTON HEAD, S.C. (May 11, 2016) — The tire recall system used in the U.S. has failed for the past 40 years, a leading tire safety advocate contends, and a machine-readable tire identification number (TIN) would go a long way toward making it a success.
Sean Kane, founder and president of Safety Research & Strategies Inc. and The Safety Institute, delivered this message at the 32nd Clemson University Global Tire Industry Conference, held April 13-15 in Hilton Head.
“I'm not here to advocate a new system,” Mr. Kane said. “I'm here to argue for a system.”
Arguing for a strong tire recall system is not the same as arguing that tires are a faulty product, according to Mr. Kane.
“Today's tires provide consumers with excellent performance and value,” he said. “These highly engineered products are often undervalued by customers. But they are also undervalued by manufacturers.
“What other product has so much impact on consumer safety and lacks individual, machine-readable traceability from production to end of life?” he said.
A machine-readable TIN would offer enormous benefits in case of a recall, according to Mr. Kane. A machine-readable TIN would:
- Improve recall recovery and registration;
- Make tire service life recommendations easy to find and manage; and
- Improve post-market performance data collection.
Machine-readable TINs easily could be achieved through various available and cost-effective technologies, including laser-etched QR codes, optical character recognition, and radio frequency identification, according to Mr. Kane.