Reading: 850,000 UK drivers break law with illegal tyres

By Alex Kapadia

As many as 850,000 motorists could be driving on UK roads with bald tyres under the legal tread limit, according to a new survey for breakdown service Britannia Rescue.

Worn tyres were the most common repair fault identified in the study, which highlighted that more than five million motorists are driving unsafe vehicles- that’s one in six drivers.

And as many as 22% of these drivers have known about the dangerous fault on their vehicle for more than six months, the company said.

A total of 31% claimed they could not afford to fix the problem, while 11% said they had not had time to get their car repaired.

A worrying 12 per cent of motorists are driving with worn tyres, nine per cent have defective brakes and six per cent have faulty exhaust pipes (6%).

In addition, one in 20 have broken or missing wing mirrors and a similar number of around five per cent have broken head or tail lights.

The figures were extrapolated from a survey of 3,225 drivers for breakdown service Britannia Rescue.

The company claimed that 180,000 of the five million un-roadworthy cars being driven on UK roads are still being used because their owners are holding out until they are eligible for the governments scrappage scheme.

Simon Stevens, general manager of Britannia Rescue, said: “Some repairs may appear to be minor but they could still turn a car into a death-trap that endangers the driver, passengers and other motorists.”

This entry was posted on Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 4:01 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.