Tyre safety neglected in Oz

It may not come as much of a surprise, but a survey by Continental Tyres has established that for every 20 cars on Australian roads, one is running on unroadworthy tyres.

For some of us, that statistic doesn't sound so bad. But it's part of a broader milieu presented by the survey – one in which as many as a third of cars on the road are in need of new tyres right now or within a matter of months.

Conducted as recently as March, the survey randomly sampled 16,904 vehicles across 10 suburban car park locations, producing results that are cause for concern. Nearly a third of the vehicles checked for the survey – 32 per cent – were fitted with tyres of insufficient tread depth for safe driving.

Of those, 27 per cent would need tyres replaced within the next three to six months, and the remaining five per cent were already unroadworthy. According to Continental, the minimum roadworthy tread depth is 1.6mm, but the tyre maker argues that tread depth should be at least 3mm for safe driving in the wet.

Even in dry conditions, there's a difference of 20m braking distance stopping a car from 100km/h with 3mm tread depth, versus 1.6mm.

"Our tyre tread research shows that not only does a serious knowledge gap exist about
what constitutes safe tyres but also that Australian drivers are potentially not taking action when they do know," said Steve Brown, Continental Tyres MD.

"Drivers need to act now to replace at-risk tyres and reduce the significant danger to not
only their own safety but also the safety of their families and other road users. This is
particularly important coming into school holiday time."

Ranked by order of states, Queensland has the safest tyres – 83.37% of cars were roadworthy and safe by Continental's standards. Victoria came next, but a long way behind at 68.09%. NSW wasn't far behind Victoria, with a percentage of 67.76. The other states surveyed (not including Tasmania) were WA, the ACT and SA, in that order.