Ensuring a Safe Journey by looking after your Tyres

We’re off on our family holidays next week and as usual, we are choosing to holiday here in the UK, making the most of some of the beautiful beaches and landscapes that the southern part of the UK has to offer. Whilst I absolutely love going to Cornwall with my family, the drive down from Birmingham is fairly substantial, meaning that we normally leave pretty early in the morning and head back late in order to make our long car journey as stress free as humanly possible.

Before any long journey (whether for business or pleasure) it is always recommended to carry out some basic checks to ensure that your car is road worthy and safe to drive, and one of the most important part of this is ensuring that your tyres are still fit for purpose. Failing to ensure your tyres are appropriate road worthy condition can not only make you more likely to have accidents, reducing your breaking time or ability to cope with severe weather conditions, but can also mean you fall fowl of the law. If you are pulled over by the police and your tyres have treads below the legal limit, you could find yourself with 3 penalty points and up to £2,500 in fines. Not a great way to start your holiday!

You can inspect your tyres at home to look for signs of depreciation, and it is recomended that you find a reliable fitter for installing new tyres who can also check to ensure that the tyres are suitably aligned, preventing your vehicle from veering more prominently from one side to the other and helping extend the tyres life.

If you are about to go on your family holiday, please keep your family safe by checking your tyres before you leave. There are many professional tyre garages that can help in buying car tyres in London,  you can choose from DAT TYRES

Did you know when it comes to Tyre Safety…

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Your tyres must:

– Be compatible with the others on the car – whilst it is OK to choose tyres from different manfacturers, the tyres must be compatible with both your vehicle and the other tyres on your car.
– Be in a  good physical condition – it would not be recommended to buy worn tyres or second hand tyres in an attempt to save a few pounds.
– Be correctly inflated to the recommended pressure – your car handbook should outline the correct tyre pressure for your vehicle, and checked regularly to ensure they are not over or under inflated.
= Have sufficient tread and depth of tread – Tyres should have a tread of a at least 1.6mm. This is about the width of a twenty pence piece should you want to do a basic visual check. Whilst 1.6mm is the legal minimum, it is recommended you change your tyres before they reach this point. At 1.6 millimetres in wet weather it takes an extra two car lengths (8 metres) to stop at 50 mph than if your tread was 3 millimetres.

*This is a collaborative post*