The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has updated the number of complaints and reports it has received regarding Firestone ATX and Wilderness tires and other tire models under investigation as part of Engineering Analysis EA00-023.
NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation Consumer Complaint database includes tire complaints filed by consumers and voluntary reports submitted by Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. and Ford Motor Co. State Farm, Safetyforum.com and NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System also have contributed to the database.
The database contains some 6,000 reports, up from 4,300 on Dec. 6, 2000. NHTSA says some of the incidents "are likely to be duplicates." More than half of the new complaints were submitted by a single attorney.
According to the updated information, 174 fatalities have been linked to the tires recalled by Bridgestone/Firestone and those under investigation by NHTSA.
