“Tyger Drew-Honey shows two young drivers why it’s important to look after your car tyres properly and what can go wrong if you don’t”

Here’s What Tiger Drew Honey had to say:

Hi, I’m Tiger Drew Honey and I recently passed my driving test.

So obviously with that came a lot of independence and freedom. Well, while I was learning, I was working with a company called Ingenie. Now, Ingenie are the guys who specialise in insuring young drivers like me. So I was making video blogs for them and documenting my journey of learning to drive and getting on the road.

It turns out there’s actually a lot more to it than I thought. You’ve got to pick the right driving instructor, you’ve got to prepare for your test and then actually just making sure your insurance doesn’t cost an arm and a leg is hard enough as well.

And then as a young driver I do think it’s really easy to forget quite how important it is to keep your car safe simply by looking after your tyres.

So just regularly checking your tyre tread depth and tyre pressure could be really important.

When Tyresafe asked me to come down and talk tyres for the day, I was well up for it.

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From the Pitstop Studio:

Now, you’re joining me in the pit stop studio where I’m just about to meet two young drivers, Chris and Maya, who are right here. They have recently started driving, and what I’m really keen about, really, is to find out how much you guys actually know about your tyres. So, would you mind if I asked you some quickfire questions?

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Question one. What is the legal minimum tyre tread depth for your tyres?

Answer: Two millimetres.

Okay, question two. What coin can you use to test the tyre tread depth of your tyres?

Answer: 50p.

Yeah, like a two pence piece. Two pence piece.

Question three – And how often should you do these checks? Once a year?
Answer: Yeah, six, seven months.

And number four, what is the biggest fine you think that you could get for having badly maintained tyres?

Just bad tyres. £200, maybe?

£500 a tyre?

Well, no offence guys, but that was pretty rubbish.

I wouldn’t have done any better myself, but thankfully we’ve actually got someone called Jordan just over there who’s a tyre expert and he can tell us whatever we want to know.

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What Jordan had to say:

Well, I’m here today to talk to you about tyres Obviously, this is a tyre, first things first is the tread the tread is very important. It’s what gives you the grip to grip the road when it’s wet.

The minimum tread depth is 1.6 millimeters anything less than that, you won’t have enough grip on the road. You’ll be breaking the law.

A very quick and easy way to check the tread depth is just to get a 20 pence piece if you slot it into the grooves, it should at least cover the outer rim of the 20 pence piece (as it does). You need to seek professional advice from a tyre fitter or mechanic.

One last thing you need to check with your tyres is the tyre pressures. You should check these at least once a month or before any long journey.

If they’re incorrect, the tyres will overheat and can fail in spectacular fashion. Also, your fuel bills will be higher and the tyre wear will be massively increased.

If you have badly maintained tyres, you can get three points on your licence and a £2,500 fine for each tyre.

I think we should hit the track and I’ll show you guys what this means to you and your car. Follow me.

Right, so while they’re getting ready, if you want to find out some more stuff about tyre safety or Young Drivers Insurance, then just head to the websites or you can find them on Facebook and Twitter.

At the track, after demonstrating the impact of inflation and tyre tread on stopping distance

I know I said it would stop before the wall.

Well, I said it would stop if we had well-maintained tyres on. We actually switched the tyres on the car for this one. And as you can see, all the tread has started to wear away, which means we don’t have enough grip to grip the road in the wet.

And I know that this was all done in a safe environment and the wall was made specifically for the test, but if that had happened in a real situation on a motorway into the back of a row of stationary cars, then that could have been really bad, right?

At best, we would have just lost the car. At worst, we could have lost our lives or even injured other passengers on the roads.

Now, if you want to find out how to save wear and tear on your tyres, want to learn a few little tips and tricks to be a better driver, or just to save money on your insurance, then check out the rest of the TyreSafe resources.

Be safe, guys.