I encourage everyone submitting their comments on this legislation to
write clearly and concisely how this problem will affect them, not to
just copy the brief suggested text Hoosier placed on their web page.
Here is what I had to say:
I am a collector car owner and automobile racer that is concerned how
this legislation will affect the availability of specialty tires for
these vehicles.
Firstly many manufacturers, some of them small businesses (like Hoosier
Tire of Indiana), produce low-volume "DOT legal" racing tires for use in
amateur racing series. These tires are already very expensive and have
an excellent safety record. I am concerned that the additional testing
costs of this legislation would either drive the businesses in question
out of the market or raise the cost of racing tires substantially, which
in turn will hurt the low-budget "weekend" racers like myself the most.
Similarly, I also own a couple of older collector vehicles made in 1922
and 1928 (Essex and Franklin). I enjoy working on and driving these
old-time vehicles to parades, shows and the like. These old vehicles use
low-volume bias-ply tires made, once again, by small US businesses like
Universal Tire of Hershey, PA. If this legislation passes the supply of
DOT legal tires for these vehicles could dry up (there are only a couple
of companies that make old car tires these days) regulating these moving
history lessons to a museum or the scrap heap, or worse yet to running
on either very old or US-illegal tires.
In both cases mentioned above I don't think it is fair to penalize small
US companies like Hoosier and Universal, that are American-owned small
business with an excellent safety record, just because of problems
caused by foreign-owned large tire manufacturers like Firestone.
I am not saying the proposed legislation is bad overall but I highly
encourage the NHTSA to provide an exception for small-volume
manufacturers of DOT-legal racing and vintage car tires.
- Alan Dahl
--------------
Alan Dahl home:
adahl@eskimo.com
Federal Way, WA, USA work: aland@bestnet.com
http://www.eskimo.com/~adahl ICQ 52688023
/// unsubscribe/change address requests to majordomo@autox.team.net or try
/// http://www.team.net/mailman/listinfo
/// Partial archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|