ABSTRACT
When new, tires exhibit their full and original tread design and depth. Most new passenger tires will have tread depths typically in the range of 9/32to 13/32 inch. Light-and medium-size trucks will typically have greater tread depths. As a tire accumulates miles, the depth of its tread is reduced through friction, resulting in visible changes in the tread design. The impressions the tire leaves will reflect those changes. Although general wear is not sufficiently unique to make a tire’s tread one-of-a-kind, the characteristics of tread wear are useful to distinguish one tire in a particular condition of wear from many other tires that were produced with the same tread design and dimension but that are now in different conditions of wear. Examination of the wear characteristics retained in a crime scene impression with those on a suspect tire is a significant part of the continuing examination process.
