Tyre Wholesalers Group chairman Ashley Croft has called upon the European tire industry to campaign for greater attention to be paid to poorly maintained tires.

The call came after Department for Transport figures showed an increase in the number of killed and seriously injured in 2011 where “illegal, defective or under-inflated tires” were a contributory factor.

The chairman also addressed the issue du jour, EU labeling legislation, and while he expressed support for the tire label and supported the wish to scrutinize the grades on labels, he also suggested that it was not “the number one priority of the tire industry.”

Croft addressed the “number of challenges, not only for distributors but for manufacturers also,” brought about by the tire label. “Results for tires were released very late by many manufacturers, and tires were subsequently supplied without labels, although manufactured after week 2712, right into October. This has placed responsibility on wholesalers to label product in order to supply into the market once the regulation came into force on 1st November.”

Meanwhile, he summarized the challenge for manufacturers with the question, “when is a BB-rated tire not a BB rating?”

“At the recent Tyre Labeling Legislation and Marketing Conference held in Brussels,” Croft said, “a raw materials supplier made the point that a Far Eastern tire manufacturer, typically designated as a budget tire manufacturer, buys the same raw material from the same suppliers as the traditional premium brand manufacturers. The tires are produced in the latest state-of-the-art factory with the latest equipment, by engineers that have been supported potentially by engineers from Europe following factory closures on the European mainland.

“Why should the Far Eastern product be inferior to that produced by premium manufacturers? Labeling has certainly focused minds on the ratings being provided on tires. One senses that the premium brand manufacturers have the most to lose as a result of this legislation. 

“Indeed the ETRMA, in their role as Europe’s self-appointed tire police, stated last month that ‘market surveillance should be the number one priority of the work of the organization’. The TWG supports tire labeling and agree that label results claimed by manufacturers and displayed on tires must be capable of scrutiny, but I would not state this is the number one priority of the tire industry.”

Croft noted that at the TWG luncheon in 2011, he had commented on the statistic that 60% of tires removed at the time of replacement are illegal, suggesting the case for greater enforcement. This year, Department for Transport figures for 2011, released this year, gave him reason again to focus his speech on illegal tires.

“A sad statistic released this year was the confirmation in September from the DOT of Road Casualties in Great Britain in 2011 showing an increase in ‘killed and seriously injured’ of some 5% over 2010 figures, and the first increase in this total for a number of years. The number of ‘killed and seriously injured’ in 2011 where ‘illegal, defective or underinflated tires were a contributory factor increased by almost 25%, he noted.

“Whilst this contributory figure is relatively small against the total, the growth of this is a worrying trend. Using the DOT cost calculation figure, the cost to the country of these tire-related serious accidents for 2011 was in excess of £80 million.

“We have a lot of talk about part-worn tires and associated dangers, but until we can educate the public and enforce existing tread depth laws how can we realistically expect our message on part-worns to be heard?”

Croft recounted a recent BBC series, which asked, “How safe are Britain’s roads?” In the first episode, one of the presenters “took his seven-year old Renault Espace to the Thatcham Test Facility for a brake test comparison.” When there it was discovered that “his near side front tire had no tread on the outside to the point where it was verging on the illegal.” It transpired that he could not recount when he had last checked his tire’s pressure, while his view of what the tire pressures should have been was not mirrored by the actual handbook recommendations. 

“We have to ask how such attitudes can be addressed,” Croft continued. “If a TV presenter of an assumed reasonable level of intelligence does not think it worthwhile to check his tires and pressures before the vehicle has its braking potential tested, what chance are our expectations of users completing regular tire checks on their vehicles?” With tires worn beyond the legal limit at the time of removal staying around 60%, Croft says the U.K.’s drivers show “a total disregard of our tread depth laws.”

Asking how this an be addressed, Croft asked, “do we have an appetite to address this? Should the focus of the ETRMA be surveillance or safety? Could we, as an industry, work together on a campaign to tackle this issue?”

“If we do nothing, nothing will change,” Croft said, “We have to get our existing tread depth laws enforced. In this era of budget cuts and caps, how can we achieve a re-directing of resource?“

The unfortunate 2011 casualty stats provide us with an opportunity to broach this subject and bring pressure to bear on enforcement bodies. We need to embarrass the government by this existing state of affairs such that they are forced to redeploy resource within our police forces. Every single MP should be written to and made aware of the statistics of illegal tires removed and the increase in killed and seriously injured by tire associated accidents in 2011, with the corresponding cost to the country. 

“All local papers should be written to, highlighting the lack of the enforcement and results it is bringing. Local radio and TV stations should be contacted and provided with interview opportunities, again highlighting what the lack of enforcement is bringing,” he said.

“The industry could even consider a fund to provide a specific police tire inspection team, capable of touring the country and running tire safety weeks as of old. That would be a good use of the record results we are seeing the tire manufacturers currently enjoy.” (Tyres & Accessories)