More than two years ahead of their target date, Michelin and the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) have secured commitments from all 50 U.S. states to include consistent tire-maintenance and safety information in their driver education programs. Michelin North America chairman and president Pete Selleck told C/D that it had once seemed like a daunting feat for the tiremaker and the FIA, which partnered on a Beyond the Driving Test initiative with the goal of having all 50 states on board by 2020.
“We thought that was aggressive, and then we went to work and discovered some interesting allies in the fight,” Selleck said. Not only was support found in the traffic-safety community, but the states themselves also proved to be key partners, he said. Selleck acknowledged the challenge of approaching dozens of different bureaucracies with the notion that a curriculum needed to be updated. When the effort was launched in 2014, only a handful of states had the kind of tire-maintenance information that Michelin and FIA hoped to include in basic driver training. But states were refreshingly receptive, and they were aided by a basic blueprint that Michelin put together.
The new tire-safety and maintenance information will be added when states publish new driver-training manuals. Twenty-six of 50 states have already done so.
Some of the basic but important information to be presented includes education on checking tire pressure and tread wear. Michelin, in line with safety regulators, recommends tire pressure be checked once a month using a pressure gauge to ensure that a tire’s pounds per square inch (psi) pressure is at the carmaker’s recommended level, which is typically found in the doorjamb or in the owner’s manual. For tread wear, there is the penny test: To see if the tread is past 2/32 of an inch, which is the point at which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says the tire is unsafe and should be replaced, you can put a penny in the tread with Lincoln’s head upside down and facing toward you. If you can see the top of Honest Abe’s head, it’s time for new tires.
The idea to get all 50 states’ driver-training programs to include tire-maintenance information came about organically. Selleck said the daughter of a senior executive at the company told her mother that there was nothing about the topic in the training she completed. Michelin did a survey and found that most parents had been given no basic tire information in their own driver’s-ed classes, either.
The people behind the effort were also aware of some sobering statistics. According to NHTSA, there are some 11,000 tire-related crashes in the United States each year, almost 200 of which involve fatalities. “Many of these crashes can be prevented through proper tire maintenance—including tire inflation and rotation—and understanding tire labels, tire aging, and recalls and complaints,” the agency said.
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