It is a fact that tyres are one of the major component of point of contact between the vehicle and the road. It is an important component when the overall safety of a vehicle is taken into consideration. Dasos Michaelides of Philip White Tyres spoke as to why tyres are considered as a major component of a vehicle and a serious matter to consider when it comes to safety.
Michaelides stated that it is “absolutely frightening” to see the amount of people driving around without knowing how bad their tyres are. Michaelides, also the regional chairman of the National Tyre Distributors Association (NTDA), revealed that around one in ten cars in the United Kingdom have bad/illegal tyres.
“We estimate that around 10 million people are driving around the UK now with one or more illegal tyres,” said Dasos.
“A vehicle that has an illegal tyre is six times more likely to be in an accident than a vehicle that is legal, that’s in the dry, when you are in the rain that goes up to eight times”.
According to him, the reason why people around the world ignore tyre safety is because of their “lack of understanding”. Dasos says Philip White Tyres has seen as many as eight or nine from every ten visitors not bothered about their tyre pressure which is equally important in the process of maintenance of the tyres.
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Michaelides added, “Tyre pressure is probably the most important thing for anyone driving a car, if you were 20% under-inflated you are going to lose 15% of the wear of those tyres.
“If 40% under-inflated you are going to lose 55% of the wear of your tyre, so your tyre’s life is going to be more than halved.”
Another reason as to why drivers should look after their tyres is because tyres play a huge role in producing good fuel economy figures, which will begin to drop as the tyres begin to wear down.
Michaelides of Philip White Tyres referred to the example of someone cycling a bicycle with a flat back tyre. The flatter a tyre, the more energy if required from a person to achieve the same speed.
However, he explained that “There is a massive difference in braking distance when a flat tyre and a brand new tyre with tread is considered- At 60 mph, when you brake it takes 77.7-metres with a new tyre.
“You do the same with a tyre at 3mm and you are looking at six car lengths longer to get stopped; if you were to pace that out, it would frighten you, it is so dangerous.”
He added further that, “these things are incredibly dangerous, the NTDA carried out a survey and found that 97% of part worn tyres being sold in the UK were illegal.
He finally said that “people need to be checking their tyres more often, if they ensure that their tyres are in good condition, then visiting a reputable tyre dealer at every interval would not be required”.
