Tire failure on a schoolbus leads to the death of an eighth grade student.

Revision: The link below is to a more up-to=date news article

Page A1 | Post and Courier Columbia E-Paper

/end revision

The news reported that back in April, 2025, a schoolbus suffered a front tire failure, flipped and killed an 8th grader. Needless to say, I was interested.

First, my sympathies go out to the family. I never want to read about these kind of things and this website is my attempt to reduce the probability. Doing what I can.

The news reported that the state highway patrol investigation determined the cause of the tire failure was several nails embedded in the tread that lead to corrosion of the steel “Chords” [sic]. The nails didn’t penetrate through the tire. I took that to mean that the investigators thought that the inflation pressure was not the cause of the failure. Further, it was reported that the bus had been inspected about a month before the accident.

There are parts of this that don’t make sense. It takes many miles for steel to corrode within a tire – and a month doesn’t seem like enough time for the steel to corrode to the point where the tire would fail.

Other factors are that the bus was traveling at 70 mph while the state regulations say that schoolbuses can’t exceed 55 mph.

Also, I wonder if the tire in question was one designed for intracity use – that is speed limited to 55 mph. Revision: I found a newspaper article reporting that a lawsuit had been filed and the article had some pictures. The Cooper tire in question was one designed for long haul, not regional use (that is, regional would mean speed limited.) Doing a bit of digging, I see that Cooper doesn’t list its regional tires as having a different max speed for its regional tires compared to their long haul tires. That max speed is 75 mph.

I should also note, that it’s possible that Cooper’s truck/bus tire line has been revamped by Goodyear because of the takeover and the tire in question is from an older design – pre Goodyear. I think I’ve identified the tread pattern, so I don’t think this is the case.

The SC Highway Patrol report cites corrosion caused by a nail as the cause of the accident. First, my experience is that as soon as steel wire is exposed it starts to corrode, making someone looking later think that the corrosion was there at the time of the accident. Further, it is common for the rubber and the wire’s brass/bronze coating to be pulled off the wire cords. That means bare steel would be exposed and that corrodes very quickly.

I note that there is a radial split right at the failure. The ply cords have been exposed by the failure – and that is unusual as normal tread separations usually occur between the 2 belts, and the failure doesn’t cause the bottom belt to come off exposing the ply cords. It’s possible the exposed ply cords are a result of damage that occurred after the tire failed.

But there is one photo of broken (??) steel cords. What was being photographed was not indicated,

Please note: Doing a tire failure analysis by photos results in suspect conclusions. I would want to see everything in person. There are other things that could be noticed that would help in the analysis. In this case, I would want to note where that photo of broken (??) cords was pointing at.

Having said that – it appears the tire failed from an internal cause, but I can’t rule out that we are looking at a cut that failed the tire. Whether there was an inadequate design is questionable. The radial split is merely an artifact of the tread coming off, and the high pressure used.

Do I think the bus’s speed had anything to do with the failure? No.

If I were the expert witness in this case, I would want to see return data on the subject tire, particularly compared to other tires Cooper makes. That might reveal a failure pattern. I’d also want to see the maintenance records from the tire shop.

Editorial comment: Before I retired, I became aware that there were tire experts who make a living working for plaintiffs’ attorneys – and that can be quite lucrative!! But I saw that they would sometimes testify by making stuff up!! I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.