New car tyres and the 20p tyre tread trick

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I was approached by Point S Car Tyre Dealers asking if I’d like to help them raise awareness of the importance of car maintenance and safe travel. Now being a newish mummy, I thought, yes, this is something that is important to me. It’s not something that I would have thought I’d write about, but as with everything, when you become a parent your first thought is a combination of “when can I sleep?” and “is that safe for my baby?”. Well, of course cars can be very dangerous machines if they don’t stop in time…. So legal tyres are vital to all of our safety, and I have a tyre checking trick up my sleeve, which I’m sure you’ll all LOVE!

As a family, we spend a lot of time in the car, as do many of our friends. We?live in Gloucestershire and obviously drive quite a lot both doing our holiday road trips (such as this to Cornwall), trips to friends such as in Oxford and family up north too. We need our cars and our licenses. We need our family to be safe.
6 reasons tyres should be maintained properly:

1. Perished or damaged tyres may fall apart or explode when you’re driving along, which could be very dangerous.
2. Worn tyres won’t grip the road properly and could skid on wet roads, or in ice and snow.
3. Tyres with insufficient tread can increase your breaking distance.
4. Driving with defective tyres can result in super hefty penalties like a fine up to ?2500 and three points on your licence.
5. Tracking can be knocked off by pot holes and can also cause tyres to wear unevenly again impacting the tyre’s safety.
6. Your car could fail it’s MOT…. And that’s a huge hassle!

 

Checking your tyres

• The tread depth should be checked regularly to make sure it’s above the legal minimum (1.6mm in the UK in April 2016)
• You should check that your tyres are properly inflated, as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Over inflated tyres can affect your stopping distance. Under inflated tyres will cost you more in fuel.

Tyre tread checking tip

Why not use this tip we saw on TV ages ago…?

Take a 20p piece

 

Place it in the grove in your tyres

If the raised part of the tyre is higher than the rim of your 20p, your tyres are safe, if it’s within that rim, you need new tyres!

 

Road safety is vital to all of us; as car owners we’re reliant on our cars and keeping and want them to be?safe for our own family travelling as well as?anyone around us, but we’re equally reliant on other road users maintaining their cars safely too. Point S have tyre dealerships across the UK and we’ll certainly?be looking to them when we need new tyres on our cars. Their website is so easy to use and it’s so simple: input your registration number and see all the information you need for your?car….. simple!

I hope you found this a helpful post next time your car needs some new tyres 🙂

Lynne x

Disclaimer: This post is written in collaboration with Point S, however, all opinions are my own, and all advice and facts within this post should be checked against the relevant authorities and other sources.