Stairsteps of Safety
Friday, December 13, 2013 at 12:00AM By Christopher A. Sawyer
Today’s safety technologies weren’t created in a vacuum, having arisen from other, sometimes seemingly unrelated, advances that made them possible. What follows are some of the major steps along the way to the automotive safety systems we have today.
Radial Tires
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History doesn’t remember Arthur W. Savage of San Diego, California, as the inventor of the radial tire, despite receiving U.S. patent 1,203,910 on May 21, 1915. More costly, harder to construct, and less forgiving than its bias-ply cousin, the radial tire nearly disappeared from sight until Michelin stepped in and developed and commercialized it. From its headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand, France, the tire maker took Savage’s idea — wrapping the cord from side-to-side at a 90-degree angle to the rim and placing circumferential belts between the cords and tread — used steel for the belts, and called it the resulting tire the Michelin X. In an instant, tire life nearly doubled, fuel economy increased, and vehicle ride and handling (once suspension systems were modified for the radial’s unique characteristics) markedly improved.