Survey shows 8.1 million UK motorists could be driving with dangerously soft tyres
Industry specialists have called for more education into tyre safety to address the problem
One in four UK motorists fail to check their tyre pressures every other month – and could potentially be driving with dangerously soft tyres.
A survey of more than 20,000 people found that drivers are more likely to check their screen wash levels than the amount of air in their car’s tyres.
Mark Griffiths, safety expert at Continental Tyres, said: “As tyres are the only point of contact your car has with the road, the safety implications are considerable.
Stopped a woman driving car with flat tyre & offered to change it (on my run) She was going to garage #BeThe1toOffer pic.twitter.com/1gINrftHit
— Matt Callanan (@Matt_4_Good) March 14, 2017
“It is clear that more education is needed in order to reduce avoidable accidents.”
Jamie McWhir, Michelin UK technical manager, said the implications of driving with tyres low on air is lethal: “This research is worrying but unsurprising,” he said.
“Michelin has carried out many thousands of tyre condition checks over the last 10 years, and we found that more than 30 per cent of vehicles have at least one tyre that we would class as dangerously or very dangerously under-inflated. That costs money in terms of fuel consumption and it can cost lives as well.”
Mark Shankland, managing director of AA Tyres, the group behind the survey, said: “Sadly the accident figures bear out just how important it is to keep tyres correctly inflated – and just how quickly failing to do so can result in tragedy.
“Failure to make these checks even after a couple of weeks can have significant knock-on effect to your fuel economy and the comfort of your drive – and not least your safety.”