LOUISVILLE, KY. (WHAS11) - “I admired my daughter to the utmost," Vivian Hargrove said.
At 28-years-old, Vaneisha Cooper was racing to the top - traveling down a road to success as a single mother, with a full-time job, a degree in healthcare management, and pursuing another degree in healthcare administration. But on Aug. 15th, 2009, on I-65 in Northern Indiana, her journey ended.
"Omigod, he told me my baby was, he said I'm sorry I have to tell you this, but Vaniesha is deceased," Hargrove said.
"I just fell to the garage floor."
Cooper lost control of her car, crossed the median and crashed, head on, into a semi-truck in broad daylight. Police called it a tire failure. Weeks later, Cooper’s parents would learn, it was much worse than that.
Sean Kane, President of Safety of Research and Strategies, a private consumer group that researches automobile product safety, including a phenomenon called "tire tread separation."
It happens as tires age. Moisture from the air gets between the tire and the tread, and slowly, the tread layer begins to tear away.
“This tire aging issue really creates an invisible hazard,” Kane said.
"So in other words, you can have a tire that may appear to be brand new, never been put into service, but the internal components of that tire have degraded to the point where they can cause a catastrophic failure,” Kane said.
Kane says a tire's tread begins to separate six years after it's made.
The tread separated, causing her to lose control. She bought the tire in 2008, one year before the crash. The tire was made in 2001.
"It's almost like a crime to me, because if I buy something I expect to get something new,” Cooper said. “Not something that might be seven, eight years old."
So how can you find out when your tire was made? First you want to look for the DOT number on the inside of your tire and follow it over until you see this four digit, indented code. Which most consumers don't realize is actually a date.
The first two numbers correspond to a week and the last two represent a year. So for example, 3-4-0-9 means the tire was made in the 34th week of 2009. That's if the tire was made in 2000 or later. If the tire was made before 2000, there's a three digit code.
But reading the code isn't the only problem. Tire manufacturers are only required to put the code on one side of the tire. So if it was installed like this tire, the code, isn't on the outside. So the only way to look at the code is to get under the vehicle and look at the number inside.
"It's very consumer unfriendly,” Kane said.
Which is why Kane, has been lobbying to try and change it to make the DOT code easier to read and to require an expiration date on tires.
The Rubber Manufacturers Association opposes these changes.
Dan Zielinski, Rubber Manufacturers Association spokesperson says, "The problem with requiring an expiration date is what date do you pick? There's no data to support when a tire will fail to perform just because its reached a certain chronological age."
Today, Vaniesha's parents are busy raising their 9 year old grandson and raising awareness of the dangers of aging tires. Both say if they knew then what they know now, Vaneisha would still be alive, and 9 year old Jaishaun would still have a mother.
Vivian Hargrove says, “I told her, I salute you and I got your back. Mommy is going to finish your race."
