Firestone Tread Failure Essay

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In July 1998, Sam Boyden from State Farm Insurance received a phone call from a claims handler requesting him to investigate incidents of Firestone tire tread failure. After researching this issue, he exposed 20 similar cases dating back to 1992. All of these cases involved Firestone ATX tires and at least 14 of them engaged Ford’s explorer vehicles. Knowing this couldn’t be a fluke, he sent an email to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) describing his findings about the cases. NHTSA acknowledged Boyden’s work but did not follow up on the criticism until early 2000. Anna Werner, a journalist for KHOU-TV in Houston, started to investigate accidents caused by tire tread separation in Texas after an lawyer brought up

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