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'Thread bare, wrong air and worn roads'

A lethal combination of worn-out roads and worn and wrongly inflated tyres is putting lives at risk, according to the AA Motoring Trust and County Surveyors' Society.

A two year survey shows that as many as 17 per cent of main roads fail basic skid resistance tests. The report also found that one in 10 cars are running on illegal tyres, around nine in 10 tyres are incorrectly inflated - and up to half forecourt air pumps are inaccurate.

"Tyres are critical car safety components - they are the easiest for motorists to check, yet most don't," says Bert Morris the AA Trust's director. "But road surfaces are critical too and road authorities must have, and fully deploy, funds to provide safer surfaces.

"Doubling skid resistance can halve the number of accidents, while driving on worn-out roads on worn-out tyres is courting disaster."

For the full report visit: http://www.aatrust.com/index.asp?pageid=31&newsid=38