The tyres on your car are incredibly important for your safety however, they are often forgotten and ignored. In honour of Tyre Safety Month, we’re taking a look into how you can keep your tyres safe, to keep you safe.
Tyre Safety Month
Tyre Safety Month is an annual campaign by TyreSafe to remind us to regularly check our tyres. Their aim is to emphasize the importance of tyre checks to keep everyone safe. This year their campaign focus is on emergency stops with the strapline ‘If your tyres don’t stop you… what will?’.
Emergency stops rely on tyres in good condition. The worse condition your tyres are in, the longer the stopping distance will be.
When was the last time you checked your tyres?
The Importance of Tyre Safety
We see it a lot as a car repair and MOT centre – tyres are often forgotten about. Many drivers simply jump in their car for each journey with little to no thought going into is this vehicle safe for me and other road users.
Most tyre checks are really simple to do and can be done on your driveway.
Tyre Condition
A shocking survey done by TyreSafe found that there are almost 10 million illegal tyres being used in the UK.
There are a couple of easy tell-tale signs that your tyre is damaged.
- Excessive noise
- Unusual vibrations
- Bulges
- Cracks
How to Check Your Tyre Pressure
Your tyres need to be pumped up to the specified PSI to work at their best. If a tyre is over-inflated the tread in the centre will wear down faster than the rest of the tyre. This will lead to the tyre needing to be replaced more frequently as the uneven tread will cause a loss of handling. However, if a tyre is under-inflated, the handling will be difficult and the steering will feel heavier. This will also cause the tyres to wear more quickly because of an increased surface making contact with the road. So, both over or under-inflated tyres will disrupt your driving and need replacing sooner.
This is why it’s important to regularly check your tyre pressure. You will be able to check what the correct PSI for your car will be in the manual. If you can’t find that, sometimes it will tell you in the fuel door or the door frame. Then you can just pop into almost any petrol station as they usually have air pumps. If you need any help, just visit any one of our garages and we can help!
How to Check Your Tyre Tread Depth
When people talk about tread depth, they are discussing how deep the grooves are in the tyres. The legal minimum tread depth is 1.6mm so anything smaller than that is illegal, dangerous and unsafe to drive. Ideally, as soon as your tread depth drops below 3mm you should be replacing the tyre as this will cause a huge drop in grip efficiency and traction. This could also lead to a loss in performance and potentially cause skidding. Another issue would be a drop in braking performance and an increase in your stopping distance. All of these issues will have a negative effect on your fuel efficiency which is the last thing anyone wants in this current climate.
Checking your tyre tread depth couldn’t be easier, all you need is a 20p coin.
- Place the 20p coin into the tyre groove
- If the outer band of the coin is covered, your legal
- If you can see the outer band of the coin then your tread depth is less than 1.6mm making your tyres illegal so they will need to be replaced.
When you check your tyres if you notice one is looking dangerous and you want to switch it over with your spare, you can see how to change your tyre here.
Free Tyre Safety Check at CCM
If you are worried about your tyres, or just want someone to give them a check we can help. Pop down to any CCM location and our team will happily take a look for you and provide our most honest advice.