Collusion.

After the extremely costly collusion cases that recently rocked the rubber industry, you would think that the tire companies would be leery of meeting together for anything. But they met in Los Angeles on February 8 to what was described as, "review progress and set a forward-looking agenda for their global research program dealing with potential environmental and health impacts of their products." I'm sure there is a federal regulator somewhere interpreting that as price fixing.

The general public, and some in this industry, would never associate forward looking agendas with the tire makers. Even more would dismiss this when you attach potential environmental and health impacts to the agendas. The tire industry is seen as reactive to issues, instead of proactive.

The meeting was actually to renew the industry's commitment to study the potential risks associated with materials used in tire manufacturing, along with the impact of tire-wear particles generated during normal product use. In 2005, the tire makers funded a $1 million research program under the auspices of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development based in Switzerland. Work with the German Institute of Rubber Technology has resulted in a multi-year research program that addresses gaps in the existing information on these topics. For the next 18 months, tire makers will work with material suppliers assessing potential and future risks, and they will also collect and characterize tire wear particles found in the environment. By 2008, a more precise risk assessment will be available.

The tire makers are also in collusion in a U.S. Federal court case against the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concerning tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS). They are joined by the usual nemesis Public Citizen. Together, they claim the NHTSA regulations concerning TPMS fall short of what Congress intended in its legislation following the Ford Explorer rollover fiasco back in 2000. You wonder if the "S" should be removed from NHTSA. They have already had their first set of regulations thrown out by a court in 2003, and these are similar. The major shortcomings are that the regulations fail to provide warnings soon enough and don't require the system to work with replacement tires. NHTSA's original regulations in 2003 called for a warning within 10 minutes of any tire falling 25% under recommended inflation. The new regulations call for a 20 minute time frame.

Usually, collusion in the rubber industry results negatively in the image area. It's nice to be on the high road once in a while.