You are not alone in that view...

Link to referenced study report:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NRD/Multimedia/PDFs/Crash%20Avoidance/2008/811060.pdf

Page 41:
In 1999, the Commonwealth of Virginia tasked the Virginia Department of State Police to study the need for State standards for recapped vehicle tires. The occurrence of tire debris along Virginia’s highways gave rise to the perception that retread truck tires were to blame. The study would determine whether there was any substance to the perception.

Page 43:
The primary conclusion from the Virginia study “revealed that the quality of materials and methods of producing retreaded tires are not major factors in the problem of tire debris along the highways” (Commonwealth of Virginia, 2000). The primary study objective was not proved through the evidence collected and analyzed. Of the tire debris items analyzed, only one case was directly linked to manufacturing error in the retread process.

Another interesting bit of information can be found on page 48, that a survey of unservicable tires that 31% were original with the remainder being retreads (mostly one or two retreads).

The perverse bit is the more times a tire can be retreaded the more likely the road debris is going to be from a retread tire however the overall amount of road debris should drop.

This will probably come down to whether this feature can squeeze another retread out of the tire casing - that is where the savings are going to be.

The 1% extra saving in fuel will be lost in the noise (that is - too difficult to measure).

I was reading a DOT report on "Commercial Medium Tire Debris Study" (DOT HS 811 060) and an inference that approximately 50% of tire failures are due to belt separation and that 50% of the probable cause is due to under inflation (both refer to "all tire failures").

Quoting the report:
This scenario is confirmed by Kreeb et al. (2003) who noted “The act of tire pressure maintenance is labor- and time-intensive. An 18-wheeled vehicle can take from 20 to 30 minutes to check all of the tires and inflate perhaps 2 or 3 tires that may be low on air. To complete this task once each week on every tractor and trailer becomes a challenge for many fleet operators. As a result, tires are often improperly inflated.”

ZombieEngineer

Not really - you would need professional indemnity insurance.

The insurance is based on risk of a claim (more copies sold / bigger the premium, could be priced on a fixed price per copy), the impact of damage (just make sure that the license terms exclude indirect consequental damages).

The risk side of the equation can be reduced by using appropriate development structures (code reviews, etc).

This could improve the quality of the industry long term but there will be some pain getting there...

You can not sue a door or window manufacturer for failure of your action (leaving the door / window open).

You should be able to successfully able to sue a door / window manufacturer for failing to provide the request product (i.e. seal the opening).

That then hits the ugly question of what is "reasonable". Did the manufacturer provide a reasonable product that provided the expected level of security?

Another system just off the coast of Fremantle, Australia (west coast of Australia) http://www.carnegiewave.com/index.php?url=/ceto/ceto-overview Does not produce electricity directly but very high pressure sea water which can then be used directly in a desalination plant and the waste run through a hydraulic turbine to generate mechanical / electrical energy. Given that wave energy is nearly constant around the clock, generating fresh water rather than electricity does have its advantages, doubly so in a very dry part of the world. ZombieEngineer

The chemical processing industry have been working together for at least 15 years on related topics.
http://www.asmconsortium.net/deployment/guidelines/Pages/default.aspx

Might be something in there that help.
Specifically display standards and alarm rationalisation ("every alarm should have a unique action", if there is nothing the operator on shift can do about an alarm it should be journaled).

ZombieEngineer

This could feasibly be used to make a practical air conditioner by having a segmented disk shape block that allows air to pass through.

Outside air would pass through one half of the disk that is currently energised (the electric field orders the polymer and thus releases heat).

The inside air would pass through the other half that is currently not energised (the relaxation of the electric field allows the material to absorb heat).

The disk rotates with segments shifting between the outside / inside halves, the electric field is applied by a simple electric comutation.

This is not a true "no moving parts" system but it has the potential to be an order of magnitude quieter than the current air conditioning units.

ZombieEngineer