Tyre Safety Month
The BBC’s primetime entertainment programme The One Show has clarified the advice it originally gave in a studio presentation following a report highlighting the dangers of driving on illegal tyres. The original report, which featured TyreSafe and was aired during October’s tyre safety month, prominently feature key safety messages.
This is a short extract. Tyrepress and Tyres & Accessories subscribers can log in below to read the full article.
If you are not yet a Tyrepress or Tyres & Accessories subscriber, you can change that here.
Becoming a member has benefits such as:
TyreSafe reports that its membership drive is on a ‘roll’ Bond International, one of the UK’s leading tyre wholesalers, the latest to join up. 2011 has seen a number of public organisations and businesses show their commitment to road safety by becoming TyreSafe members, among them The Association of Chief Fire Officers, the British Horse Society, several vehicle manufacturers, tyre manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers as well as garage equipment suppliers.
Online tyre retailer Blackcirlces.com has joined TyreSafe, continuing a year of membership growth for the not-for-profit organisation reach top gear. The e-Tailer will assist TyreSafe in a wide range of campaigns aimed at raising the awareness of correct tyre maintenance. Mike Welch, managing director of Blackcircles.com, said: “A key priority for us has always been helping our customers to remain safe on the road by reducing the cost of their tyre purchase.
Goodyear Dunlop hosted an event at its Innovation Centre in Luxembourg, showing the road safety benefits that it believes the European tyre labelling legislation will have when it is introduced on 1 November 2012. 140 guests from over 25 European countries attended Road Safety Days, during which Goodyear argued that the 7.5x11cm label could help reduce stopping distances of vehicles on wet roads by “up to four car lengths”, in addition to reducing fuel consumption “by 7.5 per cent and lessen CO2 emissions.” During her presentation Lie Junius, the company’s EMEA director of public affairs, hinted that the “game-changing” labels could be introduced early in a “six-month transaction period… depending on the [EU] legislature.” A full report will be published in Tyres & Accessories’ December issue.
Maxxis has become the latest tyre manufacturer to join TyreSafe. As a full TyreSafe member, Maxxis will benefit from early participation and involvement in the group’s campaigns and activities. It will also have access to a wide range of TyreSafe publicity material, both printed and online.
Fast fit franchise HiQ has announced that it will give free winter safety checks to motorists, prompted by Department for Transport figures indicating a three per cent increase in road accidents resultant from slippery road conditions caused by bad weather in the last five years. The free comprehensive vehicle inspections will be available at all of HiQ’s 150 centres. HiQ fast fit manager Stuart Carr says that the franchise believes winter tyres are “absolutely essential when travelling safely during the inevitable freezing temperatures.”
Tyresafe chairman Stuart Jackson made an appearance during the opening segment on tyre safety of BBC One’s flagship early-evening magazine programme, The One Show. The five-minute report highlighted the increase in stopping distances when using tyres with insufficient tread depth. One startled motorist, who had been found by the show’s production team to be driving on illegal tyres, was then shown how to check their tyre tread depth using TyreSafe’s 20p test, which was repeated later in the studio. Tyresafe should be congratulated for the positive effect this coverage will undoubtedly have, though Simon Boseman, who presented the item, incorrectly stated that the legal tread depth limit is 3mm rather than 1.6mm, and then administered the 20p test on only the shoulder of the tyre, when two-thirds of the cross-section of the tread must be above the limit.
TyreSafe has announced that one of the UK’s newest online tyre and wheel retailers, Goodgrip.co.uk has become its latest associate member. The website is the UK trading name of Bythjul Norden AB, which has been supplying winter and summer tyres to Nordic countries for the last 10 years and launched in the UK this October.
While many in the tyre business have been pursuing safety messages linked to the use of winter tyres, a theme of industry organisation TyreSafe’s Tyre Safety Month this October, the recent autumnal weather has led UK e-Tailer mytyres.co.uk to a more fundamental message about tread depth. The company – part of European online tyre retailer Delticom – says that heavy rain, gusty winds and falling leaves “can quickly turn a normal road or motorway into a hazardous skidpan”. It says that customers should consider minimum tread depths of 3mm for summer tyres and 4mm for winter tyres.
Our own tyre safety month is currently underway, and across the Irish Sea a similar focus is also being made on tyre safety during October. On Monday 10 October Irish Road Safety Week gets underway, and like its UK counterpart the campaign will include a range of initiatives aimed at road users, including free tyre checks.
Insurance price comparison site Confused.com commissioned a survey of 2,000 drivers on tyre-related matters to coincide with tyre safety month. The site points out that drivers could see their motor insurance claims denied, get 12 penalty points on their licence and face fines of up to £10,000, simply by failing to take proper care of their tyres.
The Department for Transport (DfT) revealed yesterday that illegal, defective and under-inflated tyres were responsible for more than 1,210 road casualties in Great Britain during 2010. The latest Road Casualties in Great Britain report shows that 18 motorists were killed during the year from defective tyres, bringing the number of tyre related deaths on UK roads in the last five years to 164.
ATS Euromaster has joined the Road Haulage Association (RHA) as an associate member becoming the first national tyre service provider to sign up to the highest gold tier membership level. ATS-E says the membership will help build on its relationship with the RHA, while the association’s membership will benefit from having access to ATS Euromaster’s technical knowledge and tyre husbandry.
As part of October’s tyre safety month, TyreSafe has announced the debut of the McIntyres, an animated family of crash test dummies offering some key tyre safety tips to drivers on the TyreSafe website. In their first appearance for the organisation, the family highlights three key aspects of tyre safety – Air pressure, Condition and Tread depth – otherwise known to the organisation as the acronym ACT. They show a number of quick and easy ways for drivers to check these important areas, helping to keep them safe on the road. The video can be seen in the story below.
Tyre Safety month begins on Saturday and ATS Euromaster has marked the occasion by reminding motorists that driving with illegal tyres risks a £2,500 fine and three penalty points for each illegal tyre on their vehicle. With the latest Department for Transport report clocking 860 reported accidents on British roads where illegal, defective or under-inflated tyres were a contributory factor – including 17 fatal incidents and 165 serious accidents – safety is also a major part of ATS-E’s message. During Tyre Safety Month, ATS Euromaster is offering free tyre safety inspections at any of its 370 centres throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com. Or click below to continue on Tyrepress.
