As a tire engineer, I find this discussion thread very entertaining - and enlightening! Enlightening because of the misunderstanding many people have about tires and specifically ST tires.
First is that not only were the DOT tire standards not changed until 2000 (because of the Ford/Firestone situation), but one of the criticisms of the DOT at the time was that they weren't updating the standards based on what was being learned.
For example, it was obvious almost from the beginning of the DOT tire standards that the standards were not adequate to insure no tire failures (meaning not road hazard related failures!). It took nearly 40 years for the government to react - and it took a HUGE situation for there to be change.
Plus, there is still no standard on tire aging.
And don't forget, that when ST tires were introduced, many of the speed limits included travel trailers in the slower speed set for trucks.
Yup, very entertaining.
