Named & Shamed – Top 10 Dangerous Tyre Towns

Michelin is naming – and shaming – the ten locations in the UK where you are most likely, according to results from its 2009 Fill Up With Air campaign, to encounter motorists driving on dangerously under-inflated and even punctured tyres. The roadshow visited 24 cities around the UK during the summer, and checked more than 4,500 cars over a three-month period. And what did Michelin find out? It seems UK motorists are still unaware of how important it is to check tyres regularly. Liverpudlians were found to be the worst offenders, with more than half of the cars checked being driven with dangerously under-inflated tyres.

The roadshow’s findings show that 36 per cent of drivers in the UK are driving with dangerous (between 8 and 14psi) or very dangerously under-inflated (more than 14psi) tyres. The ten towns found to have the highest percentage of cars with dangerously under-inflated tyres are as follows:

• Liverpool – 51 per cent.
• Birmingham – 49 per cent.
• West Thurrock, – 48 per cent.
• Folkestone – 48 per cent.
• Gateshead – 43 per cent.
• Merry Hill, Dudley – 43 per cent.
• Queensferry, Clwyd – 42 per cent.
• Milton Keynes – 41 per cent.
• Enfield – 40 per cent.
• Chester – 39 per cent.

Worse still, in five locations more than ten per cent of the cars checked were found to have punctured tyres:
 
• Enfield – 23 per cent.
• Oldham – 17 per cent.
• Guildford – 12 per cent.
• Liverpool – 12 per cent.
• West Thurrock, – 11 per cent.

 “Michelin’s 2009 Fill up With Air campaign was the biggest one to date, with more cars checked during the three-month campaign than ever before,” said Peter Snelling, Michelin’s head of communications. “Despite the increase in people bringing their cars to have their tyres tested, the figures show that the majority are still not making regular checks, leading to cars on the road with unsafe tyres.

“This year’s campaign figures have, as we predicted, shown a slight deterioration from 2008 which even then positioned the UK as one of the worse offenders for tyre safety in Europe,” Snelling added. “We believe this downward trend could be partly due to the economic climate as drivers try to save money wherever they can.”

The Michelin campaign aims to educate drivers on the importance of driving with correctly inflated and safe tyres and involves checking tyre pressures and examining tyres for punctures and wear and tear, with a free fill-up on offer for those with under-inflated tyres.