Mums lax with tyre care, Cooper Tire reports

Although a regimen of over-cautiousness seems de rigueur in parenting these days, when it comes to children and road safety the average mother takes a more casual attitude. A recent US survey conducted by Cooper Tire & Rubber in partnership with the websites Cars.com and MotherProof.com showed only one per cent of mums consider automotive maintenance as a priority in "keeping their children safe" – and none specifically mentioned tyre maintenance as a priority.

The study was undertaken to determine where tyre safety ranks among other parenting concerns, such as education, health and nutrition. Mothers were asked to rank which parenting tasks were priorities for them and what proactive steps they take to benefit their families in these areas.

Buying nutritious groceries was ranked the most important activity by more than 90 per cent, with encouraging daily exercise, daily teeth brushing and non-required reading outside of school following behind. Yet although safety was the mothers’ highest-ranked category overall, ahead of health, nutrition and education, less than one per cent of respondents reported automotive maintenance as a measure to ensure their child’s safety, and not a single response mentioned tyre safety. Cooper Tire describes this as “an alarming finding, especially as almost half of the mothers surveyed revealed spending more than four hours per week shuttling their kids around town.”

Worryingly, according to Cooper the survey also showed mothers to be “considerably unfamiliar” with proper tyre maintenance technique: “Nine out of ten mothers do not regularly maintain their vehicles, leaving the duties to a male household member or professional. A quarter of the mothers surveyed do not know how to find their vehicle’s correct tyre pressure, properly check tyre pressure and tread depth, or change a tyre.”

Statistics from the Rubber Manufacturer’s Association indicate that more than half of drivers in the US – male or female – do not know how to check tread depth, and only 17 per cent of vehicles on the road have four correctly inflated tyres – dangerous statistics considering the potential consequences of improperly maintained tyres, including blow outs, longer stopping distances and less control when handling the vehicle.