This story from etyres claims that over 40% of UK motorists are driving on illegal tyres. It blames the recession – people are trying to save money.
As anyone who can answer the Show Me Tell Me questions (required for the driving test) will know, the specification for tyres is that they should have a minimum of 1.6mm tread across the central ¾ breadth of the tyre, and all around the edges. Plus the tyre should have no cuts or bulges in the side walls.
Garages will sometimes refuse to MoT a car which has less than 3-4mm of tread on any of its tyres, because there is probably less than a year’s worth of wear left on it (and that’s what most manufacturers recommend as the minimum anyway). On top of that, scientific evidence shows that low tread results in longer stopping distances and increased skidding risk – particularly in the wet.
Over half of those who were driving on illegal tyres blamed the cost.
The “research” is rather superficial – although etyres is a bona fide site, the “research” was carried out by MyVoucherCodes. Hardly the kind of company you’d expect to be expert on tyres. For example, we don’t know how many people were driving around on illegal tyres before the recession – chances are it was similar, because the “hotspots” for illegal use are Manchester and Hull, and those are place which have always been associated with questionable driving habits (if Police! Camera! Action! and all those other cop shows are to be believed).
Also, the survey was carried out among 1,491 people from 10 locations – when you consider that there are 17 million cars registered in the UK (and substantially more than 10 large metropolitan areas, even if Hull isn’t one of them), then the survey was carried out on a tiny and highly skewed sample (a mere 0.009%) of the total population!
I suspect most people haven’t got a clue what the tyre tread depth specification is. Quite a few won’t even know that tyres wear out.
It’s obviously a problem, but how much of a growing problem is unclear.