Reports were circulating yesterday that Cooper and Apollo had hammered out new deals with the USW locals at Cooper tire plants in Arkansas and Ohio. This, some suggested, would pave the way for the Cooper-Apollo marriage to be finalized and consummated.

Not so.

So while we are all waiting for the latest courtroom visit – the Delaware Supreme Court will hear Cooper’s latest appeal on Dec. 19 – things have been churning behind scenes. The Delaware Supreme Court, for instance, did ask for an update on status of Cooper-Apollo acquisition talks and of Apollo’s negotiations with the union.

We had all thought those talks were handled and done weeks and weeks ago. Apparently not, as the now apparently final USW agreements were worked out betwen Cooper and the USW “based on potential outcomes” of the situation.

Curious.

The clock is ticking for Cooper, which has still not filed its third quarter 2013 financials, citing factors “outside its control” – like its Chinese joint venture partner’s refusal to provide needed financial and production data – because Apollo’s financing the support the deal will disappear with the close of 2013.

You’ll recall that in late October, Cooper claimed it had reached contract-required successorship deals with the USW locals representing its Texarkana and Findlay plants, a statement that was repeated in court when Cooper’s suit against Apollo was heard by the Delaware Chancery Court on Nov. 5.

Apollo, at that time, called the so-called “deal” a “last-minute stunt,” and refused to move forward on its proposed $2.5 billion acquisition of Cooper. In papers filed with the Delaware Chancery Court, Apollo said it “objects to this last-minute hijack of this expedited litigation,” and that Cooper was “attempting to insert an entirely new set of issues into the case before the Nov. 5 trial.”

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From our friends at Safety Research & Strategies comes this recent blog post by Sean Kane. I had read about this unfortunate situation in the British press. I will leave Mr. Kane’s words and points for you to digest. Would be interested in your comments. [This has been edited for style and space, and some material was added in italics to complete the story.]

NHTSA has had an open rulemaking docket on tire age degradation (i.e., thermo-oxidative aging) since 2003, but will the U.K. beat the U.S. to actual tire age legislation?

Frances Molloy isn’t in an international race, but she is determined to see Great Britain adopt a tire age policy sooner rather than later. Molloy’s 18-year-old son Michael perished on July 16 along with another 23-year-old passenger and the driver in a bus crash caused by the catastrophic failure of a 19-and-a-half-year-old tire. The tire had been purchased secondhand by Merseypride Travel, which owned the 52-seat coach. It had legal tread depth, but was older than Michael.

“The risk to life from old tires – no one can put a price on that. It’s been complete devastation,” says Molloy of the impact on her family. Michael, a promising musician, was on his way home after attending a musical festival in the Isle of Wight. “He was only 18 – there was no other reason for the crash in the inquest – other than the tire.”

Molloy, forensic crash investigator David Price and Surrey Coroner Richard Travers are campaigning to change the laws in Great Britain to prevent another such crash.

In July, Travers formally announced that he would be writing a rule-43 report to alert the Secretary of State for Transport to the threat aged tires pose to public health. Travers’ report gives the Secretary a matched set. Three years ago, the Gloucestershire coroner did the same, after the 2009 death of Nazma Shaheen, whose crash was tied to the failure of a 13-year-old tire.

On Nov. 20, Molloy and Price met with Secretary of State Patrick McLoughlin, who reports directly to the Prime Minister. He assured her a response in two weeks.

“What I proposed to the government was to do something to change the MOT [Ministry of Transport] certificate so that tires over six years are not fitted and anything over 10 years are scrapped regardless of outward condition,” Molloy says.

[Editor’s Note: The Liverpool Echo reported that Molloy did receive a letter from McLoughlin, in which the minister reportedly stated he was” not persuaded” that legislation to restrict the age of tires is “appropriate at this stage.”

In his letter, McLoughlin refered to a survey his officials conducted on 210 vehicles more than 10 years old; this found 6% of tires to be more than 10 years old and 3% more than 15 years old. And although not persuaded to act, the Secretary of State for Transport wrote that he will issue advice on the use of old tires through the Vehicle Operator and Services Agency, and he proposed commissioning yet more research into the subject.

“This just isn’t good enough and he clearly doesn’t have the backbone to show some leadership here on a very serious issue,” Mrs. Molloy told the Liverpool Echo. “If there is another fatality then the government have left themselves extremely vulnerable to litigation and I would be the first person to stand by any other person who loses a relative through an old tire on a PSV.”]

Vehicles older than three years driven on public roads must pass the MOT test for safety, crashworthiness, and emissions annually. Molloy is focusing on a tire age regulation for commercial public transportation vehicles, like motor coaches, because the public has no control over their fitness.  

Molloy says that the government needs to start with an assessment of the hazard. “This isn’t a one-off,” she says. “Unfortunately, because we do not collect the data, we don’t know how big the problem is,” she says. “The Secretary of State’s office was not aware of the problem until this case, which is quite shocking really.”

“We have accumulated a great store of scientifically-determined, credible knowledge about tire age. But neither the EU nor the U.S. has translated any of it into policies, regulations – or at least education programs – directed at tire technicians or the public,” said Safety Research & Strategies president Sean Kane, who has been a vocal advocate on the issue for a decade. “In the U.S., regulators have even missed the opportunity to write rules making it easier for the public to identify the age of their tires.”

One option in the U.K. is to amend the annual MOT test and require the removal of aged tires.  Instead, good policy has been deferred, consumer awareness campaigns follow wrenching scenes of roadside havoc, and in Great Britain, at least, the message spreads one coroner at a time.

After Michael’s death, “Rise and Fall,” a song he recorded with a friend, entered the Top 40 singles charts in Great Britain at number 38. The Liverpool Music Awards honored his memory in August with The Michael Molloy Ones To Watch Award, which was given to a band composed of members 16 to 21 years old. These accolades, while welcome, pale to Frances Molloy’s goal of preventing the need for posthumous tributes to victims of tire-age-related crashes. She plans to follow up by lobbying the commercial coach industry to change their tire safety practices and replace old tires.

“I intend to keep going. Unless I get the result I’m looking for, I will keep pursing this. It’s too important,” says Molloy. “I’ve got nothing to lose. This is completely catastrophic. How are they going to respond to another mum and another crash? I do feel there will be something done. We’ll just have to hope. That’s really the bottom line.”