Passenger Tires-A Role for Government Beyond Safety

Government’s role in consumer protection began at the federal level in the early 1930’s to ensure product safety.  Consumer protection also ensures fair competition and provides for the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace to help consumers make better choices and achieve broad societal goals such as reducing environmental impacts and the efficient use of resources.
Government involvement with consumer products is often one of last resort when private industry on their own is unable or unwilling to voluntarily reach consensus on important issues such as the definition of terms, test protocols, reporting requirements, labels, and verification and compliance procedures.
The choice of tires has major ramifications to consumers and society as a whole from hundreds of dollars spent on purchase and installation, vehicle fuel consumption, vehicle stopping distance, frequency of tire replacement, and tire disposal requirements.  Information currently available to consumers does not enable informed purchasing decisions for tires.  Readily available, reliable, objective information covering fuel efficiency, treadlife, and stopping distance could result in annual savings in the billions of dollars, reduce fuel use by a billion gallons, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by ten million metric tons, and fewer vehicle related life threatening/property damage situations.