SHEDDING TREADS

Arkansas lawmaker takes on 'road gators'

He aims to spread word after run-in

State Rep. James Sorvillo
State Rep. James Sorvillo

Everyone has seen the debris from big truck tires that often litter the roadway.

photo

AP Photo

Arkansas Highway Department Director Scott Bennett

State Rep. James Sorvillo got to wondering about who cleans it up, and what happens if a driver hits some of the rubber.

The Little Rock Republican already knew the answer to the last question.

It came about a year ago when he and his wife, Elizabeth, were driving on Interstate 40 near Brinkley on the way to Memphis.

Elizabeth Sorvillo was at the wheel. Their car was traveling in the lane between a concrete barrier on the left and a tractor-trailer on the right.

"The car in front of us, obviously, ran over it and through that process spun it back into our front end," Sorvillo recalled. "There was nowhere to go. When I saw it coming, I said, 'Hold on to the wheel,' and she did."

The encounter with the tire fragment didn't disable the car, but it damaged the grille, headlights and passenger-side fender, Sorvillo said. The bill? $1,200.

Sorvillo didn't call the police, but he did the next best thing, at least for a lawmaker. He called a legislative committee meeting. It was the House Motor Vehicle and Highways Permanent Subcommittee of Transportation. Sorvillo is the chairman.

Sorvillo called it a "fact-finding" meeting on road debris, specifically remnants of tires, often called "road gators" because the strips can be shaped like alligators.

Though the number of crashes in which road debris was a factor is small, studies suggest Sorvillo is on to something.

Research by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that an estimated 25,000 crashes resulting in 80 to 90 fatalities happen every year because of vehicle parts, cargo or other material, including tire debris, unintentionally discharged from vehicles onto the road.

A survey of road authorities in the U.S. and Canada on maintenance practices found the three most prevalent forms of vehicle-related road debris to include tire treads, garbage from waste haulers, and lumber and construction materials.

The subcommittee's staff arranged for representatives from the Rubber Manufacturers Association and the Tire Retread and Repair Information Bureau to be present by conference call and top officials from the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department and the Arkansas State Police to appear in person at the meeting Friday.

The tire-manufacturing executives sought to dispel a widely held notion that the tire debris is primarily from retread or recapped tires, citing a National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration study of tire debris.

It found that the amount of retread and original equipment tire debris that the study collected was consistent with the estimated distribution of the two tire types in service.

The study found that more than two-thirds of the damage evident from the debris fragments were the result of road hazards or excessive heat. And less than 1 percent of tractor-trailer crashes were a result of defective tires.

"If retread tires weren't performing, fleet operators won't buy them," said Dan Zielinski, senior vice president for public affairs for the Rubber Manufacturers Association, based in Washington, D.C.

A major cause of a tire's shredding is because they aren't properly inflated. Technology exists that not only can monitor tire pressure but also self-adjust the tire pressure while a vehicle is moving. But Shannon Newton, the president of the Arkansas Trucking Association, said the technology is practical for only the biggest fleet operators.

Officials from the state Highway Department and from the Arkansas State Police explained what they do to keep the debris off the road.

Scott Bennett, the Highway Department director, said his agency spends about $5 million annually to collect litter, including "road gators," from state highways. He didn't have a breakdown of how much of the litter was from tire debris.

Tire integrity is part of the truck inspections conducted by the Arkansas Highway Police, which is a division in Bennett's agency.

Of the 17,548 truck inspections the Highway Police conducted in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 3,420 violations involving tires were found, said Ron Burks, the agency's chief. Of those, 1,590 violations involving tires were severe enough to take the truck out of service until the violation was corrected, he said.

But violations involving brakes and lights had worse numbers than violations involving tires, Burks said.

Maj. Mike Foster, the commander of the Arkansas State Police's highway division, said state law requires motorists to pull over and recover anything that falls from their vehicles, whether it is a mattress or a "road gator." Given how dangerous a highway can be, however, he said he would prefer the motorist call for help.

Bennett said the same thing. Motorists who see debris on the road often call the department's main number, (501) 569-2000, to report it. There also is an app for it. A contact button on the IdriveArkansas app allows motorists to report a problem or report littering.

Indeed, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety concluded that many of the crashes related to road debris can be prevented by, among other things, motorists reporting debris they encounter on the road.

That also is what Sorvillo took away from Friday's meeting. With a background in advertising, he said he wants to encourage the development of public-service announcements to highlight what can be done.

"The public is going to be the best resource," he said. "If we can make it easy to report that, the sooner we can get it off the road.

Metro on 07/23/2016

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