September 21, 2000

I want to thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing on tire safety. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) now says 103 people have lost their lives in accidents involving recalled Firestone tires. Clearly, the public is at risk. We must do everything in our power to make sure Firestone provides for the immediate replacement of the 4 million recalled tires that are believed still to be on the road today.

However, our responsibility goes beyond making sure that Firestone does what it should and must do. We have an obligation to make sure that NHTSA, the government agency responsible for tire safety, fulfills its duty to protect the public. I regret to say that, in my view, NHTSA’s performance in this matter has been nothing short of abysmal.

In fact, measured against NHTSA’s own standard for taking action earlier this year, Agency records demonstrate that NHTSA should have acted more than two years ago. On March 6th of this year, NHTSA announced it was beginning an "initial evaluation" of Firestone tire failures because the agency had received 25 complaints reporting tread separation and blowouts. These 25 complaints did not include the complaints we have heard so much about NHTSA receiving from State Farm in July 1998.

The fact is, however, that prior to July 1998, NHTSA’s records show that the Agency had already received 26 complaints about the recalled Firestone tires--one more than the 25 complaints NHTSA cited as the basis for its action on March 6, 2000. If you add in the complaints received from State Farm, NHTSA had, as of July 1998, at least 47 complaints about the recalled Firestone tires, or almost twice as many complaints as the Agency said justified its "initial evaluation" of this matter.

If 25 complaints were good enough for NHTSA to act on March 6th of this year, why weren’t the 26 complaints NHTSA received prior to July 1998 enough to justify action then?

This is not a hypothetical question I am asking, and I will demand that the Agency account fully for both its action and its inaction. Information I requested from NHTSA indicates that the Agency did not, as it has claimed, lack sufficient information to act. NHTSA had the information. This Committee has a special responsibility to determine why NHTSA failed to act and to make sure it does not happen again.

So far, 103 people are believed to have lost their lives in accidents involving the recalled Firestone tires. One can only assume that by delaying action for two years, as NHTSA appears to have done, lives were lost that otherwise might have been saved. The American public deserves better from the government agency charged with ensuring tire safety.