U.S. highway safety officials are trying to design a new test to replicate the conditions that caused the failure of Firestone tires and create a better early-warning system to prevent future problems, The Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition.
Government test standards have not been updated in three decades and requirements for companies to report problems are so weak that U.S. regulators were caught off guard when 6.5 million Firestone tires had to be recalled, the newspaper said.
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The new test would be important because so far Firestone and Ford Motor Co. , which purchased the tires for its Explorer sport-utility vehicle, cannot explain why the tire blowouts and tread losses caused accidents and at least 46 deaths.
“We’re going to try to make the problems happen,” Stephen Kratzke, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s associate administrator for safety performance standards, told the newspaper.
Japanese tire maker Bridgestone Corp. <5108.T>, which owns Firestone, said Friday it will boost U.S. and overseas production to meet consumer demand following the tire recall.
