{
  "id": "2001-mayjune-firestone-and-explorers",
  "slug": "2001-mayjune-firestone-and-explorers",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2001-mayjune-firestone-and-explorers.html",
  "year": 2001,
  "month": "May/June",
  "monthNum": 5,
  "headline": "Firestone and Explorers",
  "kicker": "TRANSPORTATION",
  "author_name": "Josh Barbanel",
  "author_title": "Reporter",
  "affiliation": "The New York Times",
  "summary": "Investigates issues with Firestone tires on Ford Explorers, identifying a surge in tire-related fatal accidents and highlighting potential oversight by government and manufacturers.",
  "keywords": [
    "Firestone",
    "Explorer",
    "accidents"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Investigative Methods",
    "Data & Databases",
    "Business & Economy"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "spreadsheet"
  ],
  "full_text": "It was late in the day. We were up to our ears in other projects when a business editor interrupted with one of those vexing requests. It was a nuisance - hardly worth the attention of one, not to mention two, highly significant reporters in the new Investigative Cluster of The New York Times. \"Can you help us open up this spreadsheet,\" the editor asked. Sigh. The spreadsheet turned out to be a messy table with the first release of government complaints about deaths attributed to Firestone tires on Ford Explorers. We clicked on the table icon in the email, counted the cases and were done. Back to our very important work. But the next day, as my colleague Ford Fessenden likes to say, serendipity happened. We were discussing what we would have said, if the editors had seen us as something more than keyboard jockeys - and actually asked for help in thinking about and dealing with the rapidly developing story of the recall of more than 14 million Firestone ATX and Wilderness tires. Well, we both had worked with government accident data files. We knew that Ford Motor Company was using warranty claims data to monitor the problem (and make its case that the problem was all the fault of Bridgestone/Firestone). We knew the federal government was relying on complaints called in by survivors, lawyers and the auto companies. If these complaints involved real people killed in real fatal accidents, shouldn't we be able to track at least some of the same cases in the rich federal database of fatal accidents? The editors never actually assigned us to look into the Ford Explorers. But we poked around, and they were fascinated when we told them we were able to clearly trace a significant surge in tire-related fatal accidents in Ford Explorers, not found in other sport utility vehicles. This was remarkable (some may say debatable) because reports of tire-related deaths were rare events. At the time, the federal government had complaints of 88 deaths in tire-related accidents in the Ford Explorer, including some going back many years.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "pre-v2",
    "extracted_at": "",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "2001-mayjune-tread-dangers",
      "score": 0.424
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    {
      "slug": "1999-december-fatal-accidents",
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      "score": 0.146
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  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2001-mayjune-firestone-and-explorers.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2001-mayjune-firestone-and-explorers.json"
}