Driving is a joy isn’t it? I’ve always thought so at least. Coming from Texas in the U.S to the UK, I suppose I’ve always had that passion for the open road that most Americans identify with. My passion has grown even further here in Europe. But with it, I’ve also become ever more aware of the importance of car safety.
Driving in the UK
You’re probably asking yourself why it’s taken coming over the pond to make me a safer driver. Well, it’s quite simple. Driving in the US involves more; more miles, more petrol and more time behind the wheel. Driving here in the UK involves bumpier roads, more cars in confined areas and a lot more changing gears and braking. On such bumpy roads tyre needs much care, there are plenty of care tyre garages around but if you need new tyres to drive locally in Essex visit Jet Wheel Tyre.
I’ve had more issues with cars here in England in 7 years than in 14 years driving in the U.S. Don’t get me wrong, I did have a couple of cars pack up on me on highways before moving here. But in my time driving in the left lane, as it were, I’ve lost two cars to engine failure.
This happened in the first couple of years after moving here. As initially I drove old bangers around until I could afford a new car in 2015. By this time I had become a bit paranoid. I made sure my oil and water levels were maintained, my timing belt was tightened and I didn’t overheat my engine. So much so that I left an equally important aspect of car safety – my tyres – pretty much by the wayside.
My Essex Experience
I first realised how important it is to keep my tyres in good condition during a pretty innocuous incident a couple of years ago. I had it in my mind that tyres could only really present a real problem if one of them exploded on a motorway or something. And what were the chances of that happening? Well, a couple of summers ago we took a drive through rural Essex. It was a Saturday morning, en route to visit my husband’s Aunt and Uncle.
Essex is beautiful , of course, with lush green countryside, beautiful parks and lovely winding country roads. We really enjoyed our day out and pulled up outside the house at about 7 pm in gorgeous sunshine. My husband was famished or tired and not concentrating; but the next thing I knew he’d hit the curb pretty hard. Our front left tyre exploded with quite a loud bang.
How We Got Things Sorted
Looking back on it now, it might not have been that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. But boy did we stress out! We didn’t have proper recovery insurance (silly, I know) and it was very obvious there was no repairing the tyre! We had to find a local tyre repair centre who could come out to us and it wasn’t a cheap resolution. The technician fitted our new tired. He then inspected our other tyres. Then told us that one of them was below the legal tread limit and the other two needed more air.
He also said that it may have been because our tyres were low on air that our front one had blown so easily. We check outr tyres’ air pressure at least every couple of weeks and get them changed regularly. There’s nothing like an expensive mistake to get you to change your ways; and to be honest it was very fortunate that we the problem occurred in a quiet residential street and not on a main road.
Lessons Learnt
I guess the main lesson here is that you can never take car safety for granted. For example, make sure you always have a car fire extinguisher in your car. Even on an idyllic day out on local roads when everything seems hunky-dory, something can go wrong. Which at the very least can mess up your day, if not much worse. We ignore our car tyres because it’s easy to fall into the trap. That leads us to thinking only of the mechanics of a vehicle and not its external components. Caring for your car tyres by getting them regularly inspected can prevent a serious accident and literally save your life.
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