Running from 5-11 September, it’s the second year of the road safety campaign and it’s a joint initiative of the Australian Road Safety Foundation, Bob Jane T-Marts and Michelin.
Here’s the disturbing part.
Do you know how to check your tyre pressure? Pump up your tyres? Check the tread depth? Change a tyre?
According to research commissioned by Bob Jane T-Marts, 60 per cent of women never check tyre tread AND women are three times more likely than men to get an expert to conduct tyre pressure checks rather than do it themselves.
Ladies (and gentlemen)…. Air pressure gauges are located at almost every service station. If you own a car, or regularly drive someone else’s car, then you need to know how to do this.
The results also showed that a third of women leave the dirty work to their partner. That’s all well and good – some people love tinkering with cars and everyone loves to feel useful.
But that doesn’t change the fact that you should know how to check your tyre pressure, tread depth, put air in your tyres and change a tyre – in case you are ever in a position that you need to.
Late at night… mobile phone battery dead… doesn’t sound like fun, so don’t be unprepared for the unexpected.
In order to combat this shocking trend, safety expert and founder of the Australian Road Safety Foundation, Russell White, said this year’s Tread Safely Week has an added female focus.
“The statistics are clear. If more females were armed with the know-how, we would have fewer dangerous vehicles on the road,” Mr White said.
“Empowering a nation of ‘femechanics’ – by converting women’s superior safety consciousness into knowledge and skills – will ultimately save lives,” he said.
Why did he say ‘superior safety consciousness’? Because of the 761 fatalities on Australian roads over the first seven months of this year, females accounted for only a quarter of these.
Also, the aforementioned research found that women are apparently the more safety conscious sex, and though they don’t conduct regular safety checks on their own vehicles, are less likely than men to drive on unsafe tyres.
Bald or incorrectly inflated tyres can cause accidents and amazingly almost 60 per cent of Australian motorists don’t know the minimum legal tyre tread depth.
So this week, if you don’t know how to correctly check that your tyres are safe, please take the time to learn more about it. You might just enjoy getting your hands dirty!
Even if it’s not your thing and you continue to rely on a partner or tyre retailer, at least you won’t be caught completely off-guard if you ever have to do it yourself.
To get you started, here are some helpful links. Happy Tread Safely Week!
