Just my take on the Firestone/Ford deal - in my opinion, there were three parties responsible in each of the accidents, and each was equally responsible. Ford for making the Explorer as unstable as it is (granted, it's an SUV but it could've been wider), Firestone for making the flawed tires, and the end-user for abusing the flawed tires. From what I can tell, the tires were fine as long as they weren't ever abused - they couldn't be overloaded or underinflated at all. Which was the flaw in the design/manufacturing; a product should be able to stand up to some misuse and abuse to be safe. But many of the pics of rolled Explorers that I saw had one thing in common - the tire with delaminated tread was often on a steel wheel, like it was a spare, and the others were alloys like you almost always see on Explorers. Which leads me to believe it was underinflated, as nearly everyone's spare is to an extent.
And I've started ranting again. Sorry, I just partied too hard last night and I can't talk much, so I type more. =P
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Project 1970 - soon to be seen at
http://milhouse.treylis.org:81/