When a tire tread is worn, the groove volume decreases, reducing the tire's ability to channel water away from the tire footprint, reducing wet road performance. For some tread configurations, even if the tire tread has not worn down to the legal minimum non-skid depth, the tire's wet road performance of the tire may be severely limited.
However, decreasing the net to gross ratio of the new tread in an attempt to increase the worn groove volume reduces the new tire tread stiffness, reducing tire handling and wear performance. In such a low net to gross, to compensate for increased grooves, the tread depth may be increased; however, this may also lead to greater block movement, reducing the tread stiffness.
The present invention is directed to a tire tread wherein the siping configuration yields a tread element with a desired new tire stiffness, and a worn tire wet road performance.