Section 428.10  General

These rules supplement and comply with statutory requirements.

a)         Effective Date:  These rules take effect January 1, 1973.

b)         Authority:  These rules are established pursuant to the provisions of Section 12-405 of the Illinois Vehicle Code.

c)         Purpose:  These rules are established to facilitate compliance with the provisions of Section 12-405 concerning the sale, lease, installation, or use of unsafe tires and, thereby, to lessen the dangers of vehicle operation on the streets and highways of this State.

d)         Scope:  These rules set forth precepts, criteria, and standards for use in determining, by visual inspection, whether a tire shall be considered to be unsafe.  Descriptions or examples of damage, deterioration, markings, lack of markings, tread conditions, and wear are included.  Also included are summaries of statutory requirements and enforcement procedures.

e)         Application:  These rules apply to any passenger car tire listed either in the tables of Appendix A included herewith or in future revisions of these tables issued by the Director of the Office of Transportation Safety in the Illinois Department of Transportation.

1)         These rules do not apply to any tire on a wrecked, damaged, disabled, or impounded vehicle being towed to a repair, collection, salvage, holding, or storage location either with a driver in the towed vehicle or by means of a vehicle, such as a wrecker, designed and equipped for this special use.

2)         These rules do not apply to a spare tire.

f)         Definitions

1)         Standard Definitions:  Unless otherwise stated, words or terms are used in the appropriate meaning defined in Webster's Third New International Dictionary.

2)         Special Definitions

            "Bead" means that part of the tire made of steel wires, wrapped, or reinforced by ply cords, that is shaped to fit the rim.

            "Bottom of the tread groove" means the portions of a tread groove nearest the carcass.

            "Carcass" means the tire structure, except tread rubber and sidewall rubber.

            "Circumference of the tire" or "Tire circumference", in connection with the spacing of either tread wear indicators or tread wear measurements, means a closed line around the tire perimeter that lies approximately in a plane perpendicular to the axis about which the tire rotates when in use.

            "Cord" means the strands forming the plies in the tire.

            "Depth of tread" (see "Tread groove depth").

            "Highway", or "Street", means the entire width between boundary lines of every way or place of whatever nature when any part thereof is open to the use of the public as a matter of right for purposes of vehicular traffic, other than public ways for vehicular traffic within a park district for which the park district has maintenance responsibility, excepting the Chicago Park District.

            "Install" (see "Mount").

            "Lease" means granting the nonpermanent possession or use of and includes such acts as renting or lending.

            "Mount", or "Install", means assembling a tire to a rim.

            "Passenger Car Tire" means any tire of a size designation and type listed in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 109, as amended. (See Appendix A.)

            "Ply" means a layer of rubber-coated parallel cords.

            "Recut" (see "Regroove").

            "Regroove", or "Recut", means either the deliberate deepening of existing tread grooves by cutting, burning, or other means or the deliberate forming, by cutting, burning, or other means, of a groove other than the original molded grooves made by the tire manufacturer or retreader.

            "Retreaded" means manufactured by a process in which a tread is attached to a used tire.

            "Rim" means the metal that supports a tire and that is located between the tire and the wheel disc or wheel spokes when in use on a vehicle.  The rim may be integral with, permanently or temporarily attached to, or separate from the wheel.

            "Roadway" means that portion of a highway improved, designed or ordinarily used for vehicular travel, exclusive of the berm or shoulder.

            "Separation" means a parting or pulling away from the adjacent portion(s) of the tire structure or material.

            "Sidewall" means that portion of a tire between the tread and the bead.

            "Snowmobile" means a self-propelled device designed for travel on snow or ice or natural terrain steered by skis or runners, and supported in part by skis, belts, or cleats.

            "Street" (see "Highway").

            "Tie bar" means rubber that is molded across a tread groove and that braces or stabilizes adjacent tread elements.

            "Tire circumference" (see "Circumference of tire").

            "Tread" means the thickness of tire rubber that is located outside the carcass and that normally comes into contact with the roadway as the inflated tire wears during use.

            "Tread element" means a distinct portion of the tread, such as a rib, lug, or knob, that comes into contact with the surface of a dry, paved road.

            "Tread groove" means the space between adjacent tread elements.

            "Tread groove depth", or "Depth of tread", means the shortest distance from a plane in contact with two adjacent tread elements to the bottom of the tread groove that is located between the adjacent tread elements.

            "Tread wear indicator" means a molded lump that stands ²/₃₂ (¹/₁₆) of an inch above the bottom of tread groove.

            "Undertread" means the rubber between the bottom of the tread grooves and the carcass.

            "Vehicle" means every device in, upon, or by which any person is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway, except devices moved by human power, devices used exclusively upon stationary rails or tracks and snowmobiles as defined in the Snowmobile Registration and Safety Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1981, ch. 95½, par. 601-2.15).

            "Visual Inspection" means a checking or testing by sight and includes the comparing of portions of tires with simple scales or gauges and the use and reading of such scales or gauges.