TyreSafe: Share your experiences to encourage regular tyre checks
If you’ve suffered as a result of a tyre-related incident, and you are willing to share your story, TyreSafe invites you to participate in its #ItHappenedToMe campaign.
If you’ve suffered as a result of a tyre-related incident, and you are willing to share your story, TyreSafe invites you to participate in its #ItHappenedToMe campaign.
The Easter holidays mark a time when vehicles popular in the summer, such as caravans, classic cars, horseboxes, and motorhomes, return to the roads from winter storage. Due to such a long period off the road, it is necessary to ensure their roadworthiness, and TyreSafe, the UK’s tyre safety charity, is appealing to all owners to make sure checking the rubber is part of this process before hitting the road for the 2017 season. The organisation has created an animation to help people perform these checks, viewable below, or on TyreSafe’s YouTube channel.
MoT failure rates due to tyre defects are, states TyreSafe, unacceptable. The safety organisation reports that data it requested from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) reveals nearly 2.2 million cars failed the MoT in 2016 as a result of dangerous or illegal tyres, a figure that shows tyre defects to be behind 27 per cent of all car MoT failures. Of those, 106,000 failures involved cars taking their first MoT upon reaching three years of age. That equates to a five per cent failure rate due to tyre defects for all cars taking their first MoT. Overall, tyre defects are second only to lighting as the most common reason for MoT failure.
Although the National Tyre Distributors’ Association would like to see them banned and TyreSafe implores motorists not to buy these products, around 4.5 million part-worn tyres are sold in the UK each year. The Local Government Association (LGA) has now also highlighted some of its members’ experiences with the sellers of used tyres, and cautions motorists to exercise caution when buying.
The Department for Transport claims that motorists would save more than £100 million a year if cars underwent their first MOT after four years instead of three, however some see a downside to the recently proposed changes. Relaxing the inspection timetable may, believes TyreSafe, result in more vehicles taking to the road with worn tyres.
TyreSafe is encouraging drivers to pay attention to its Tyre Safety Month message throughout the year following the conclusion of October’s Tyre Safety Month. The number of reported casualties caused by tyre-related defects fell in 2015, though on average more than 1,000 people a year are killed or injured from such incidents (1,075). In fact, that average number of casualties is higher than for faulty brakes (1,052) and nearly double that for incidents causing injury where the driver’s use of a mobile phone (651) was a contributory factor, Department for Transport figures over the last five years show.
A new 360° video from TyreSafe depicts the gulf in braking distances between tyres with full tread and those whose treads are just below the legal limit. The film has been devised to immerse viewers in the action so they can safely experience for themselves the lack of control provided by tyres with dangerously low tread depth. The film builds to a dramatic climax as the test car careers through a purpose-built wall – out of control and unable to stop in time.
Chelsea FC has become the first Premier League club to lend its official support to the UK’s tyre safety awareness charity, TyreSafe. The high-profile signing follows support of Tyre Safety Month in 2015 by the Chelsea Ladies FC team, which has now grown to include the club as a whole. Yokoahama, famously Chelsea’s official shirt sponsor since the 2015/16 season, introduced Tyre Safety Month to the club last October, with features in matchday programmes and a message reminding fans to check their tyres played at the end of games.
The Department for Transport’s Reported Road Casualties Great Britain (RRCGB) analysis has revealed a reduction in casualties resulting from tyre-related incidents on Britain’s roads. 2015’s data shows a 28 per cent decrease in the number of people killed or seriously injured in tyre-related incidents with total casualties falling by 16.2 per cent when compared with 2014 figures. The results are good news for TyreSafe the day before the start of October’s Tyre Safety Month 2016; the latest figures mean there has been a 44 per cent decrease in all casualties caused by tyre-related incidents since the inception of Tyre Safety Month’s organiser, TyreSafe, in 2006.
With children going back to the classroom and rush-hour traffic resuming, Bridgestone has urged motorists to take extra care on the school-run. The tyre manufacturer said that the latest TyreSafe research suggests that 10 million vehicles could be driven with at least one tyre under the minimum legal limit of 1.6mm. Coupling this with the new school term and an expected spike in traffic and Bridgestone believes that the time has never been more critical to carry out some simple tyre checks – or even drive to a selected garage to get a professional technician to take a look.
TyreSafe has been awarded full charity status. The organisation, in its tenth anniversary year, states this milestone is a major boost to its tyre safety awareness campaign. It adds that attaining this status increases the potential for TyreSafe to work with a wider range of organisations by underlining its non-commercial and not-for-profit credentials.
TyreSafe supporters, Micheldever/Protyre, GITI Tire UK, Westgate Tyres and Chris Hardy Tyres are each providing expert tyre advice to motorists participating in Highways England’s Stop4T activities. With their help, TyreSafe is joining the emergency service and Highways England officers at 19 service stations along the M6 corridor to provide potentially life-saving road safety advice, Stop4T as part of its on-going campaign to reduce the number of casualties on Britain’s roads.
TyreSafe’s Innovation and Technology Award, sponsored by Michelin Tyre, has been awarded to Sigmavision. The award recognises the innovative use of technology within the tyre industry, and TyreSafe’s positive contribution to raising awareness of tyre safety issues. Chairman of TyreSafe, Stuart Jackson said the Sigmavision TreadReader shows “versatility [and] capability for adoption across a comprehensive span of applications.”
TyreSafe shared the results of its latest national tyre survey on 14 July, with the shocking headline figure suggesting that “over 10 million UK motorists could drive a vehicle with an illegal and dangerous tyre during 2016”. Speaking during the Tyre Safety Month Briefing, TyreSafe chairman Stuart Jackson shared how the survey, conducted by TyreSafe in partnership with Highways England, reveals that more than 27 per cent of tyres were already illegal when they were replaced. That equates to more than one-in-four of the 37 million cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) on the UK’s roads.
Spokespeople from tyre industry, government agencies, external industry bodies gather to demonstrate broad-base discussions on ‘Meeting the Compliance Agenda’, including fire prevention and part-worn tyres The new president of the Tyre Recovery Association (TRA), John Bramwell opened proceedings at May’s Ardencote Manor hosted Recycling Day 2016 by setting out the “need for strength” within the […]
If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com. Or click below to continue on Tyrepress.