Cathy’s Blog

Ok, call me a typical woman but I like to get in my car, aim it and get to where I want to be. Now, I’m not that typical that I’d be daft enough to try and apply make up while driving but I am typical enough to not think about the practical checks on the car before I get in and ‘aim’. You know those quite fundamental but often overlooked things such as tyres and lights etc.

That is, until I had a close call through not doing those checks!

I was on the school run one morning and a car pulled out from a side turning without looking. I applied my brakes which had never failed me and I wasn’t speeding. However, it was raining and I aqua planed straight into the side of the other car. My children and I all suffered whiplash and the children in the other car were very shaken. Now this accident could have been an awful lot worse had I been speeding and I couldnt’ understand why I seemed to have no control when breaking - i had driven in teh wet weather many times and never had such an incident.

It turns out that the tread on my tyres is below the acceptable standard. i had not even considered looking at the tyres but because the tread was low it could not clear the water from beneath the tyres and the action of sudden braking caused the car to aqua plane. The accident may well have been the fault of the driver who pulled out in front of me but what consolation would this have been had someone been seriously hurt…. or worse?

I have since learnt that tyres should be changed every 20 - 25k or every two years - whichever comes first. Check the tyres for damage frequently - cracking, splitting, bulges can be caused by hitting kerbs. Remember that the absolute bare minimum tread depth you can legally have is 1.6mm but it is much more adviseable to change them before they get to this point - it could just save a life. If nothing else it will save you alot of money should the police decide to check your vehicle! if your tyres are below this legal depth you could be facing a £2500 fine and three penalty points per tyre!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 10:26 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.