The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are each expected to vote this week on the House-Senate conference report for HR 22, federal highway legislation.
Included in the measure are three provisions advocated by RMA: setting minimum tire performance standards for tire fuel efficiency and wet traction; tire registration at point-of-sale; and the creation of a consumer-friendly tire recall search tool.
The provisions fall under the Tire Efficiency, Safety and Registration Act (TESR) section. Click here to view the full report (the TESR section falls on pages 1071-1077). A summary of the provisions follows below.
HR 22 establishes a minimum tire fuel efficiency performance standard that will eliminate the least fuel efficient tires from the passenger tire market, while a wet traction performance standard will help ensure tire fuel efficiency improvements are not achieved that the expense of wet traction performance and safety. This subsection does not apply to light truck tires, deep tread tires, winter tires, spare tires, or tires with nominal rim diameters of 12 in. or less.
HR 22 will require tire sellers to register tires to help boost registration rates and improve the ability of tire manufacturers to directly notify consumers of a tire recall so that tires with potential safety issues can be quickly removed from service and replaced.
HR 22 will require NHTSA to develop a web-based tire recall lookup tool searchable by TIN to enable consumers to quickly determine whether a tire is subject to a recall.
According to RMA, the House is anticipated to vote on the conference report on Dec. 3 and the Senate is expected to follow on Dec. 4. President Obama is expected to sign the measure.
