Siping

 

Siping is a process of cutting thin slits across a rubber surface to improve traction in wet or icy conditions.

Siping was invented and patented in 1923 under the name of John F. Sipe. The story told on various websites is that, in the 1920s, Sipe worked in a slaughterhouse and grew tired of slipping on the wet floors. He found that cutting slits in the tread on the bottoms of his shoes provided better traction than the uncut tread. Another story is that he was a deckhand and wanted to avoid slipping on a wet deck. 

 

 A tire with ziggy-zag sipes.