Kettering car technician says he sees cars dangerously bald tyres weekly
Adam Carnie from In Town Automotive says seeing the state of some peoples cars has changed the way he drives
A car technician in Kettering says he weekly sees cars with dangerously bald tyres.
Adam Carnie is an MOT tester at In Town Automotive and is urging drivers to use free vehicle health checks to keep their cars safe on the road.
"On a weekly basis, there's tyres coming in with the steel cords visible. And so they're completely devoid of tread and at any moment they could let go."
He tells us some of the worst cars he sees brought in:
"Various between brakes worn down to the metal where there's quite an obvious noise coming from the brakes and you're left thinking, how has this been driven for the last few weeks, let alone how is it driven into here?"
Adam tells us seeing how bad some cars are kept has changed the way he drives:
"Me personally, I tend to give myself a wider berth to other vehicles on the road because like I say, you're not sure of their stopping distance or the quality of their brakes, their tyres, et cetera, et cetera. So I tend to iron the side of caution."
His comments come as road safety charity Brake, say the Government NEED to publish a road safety strategy, urgently.
Recent figures revealed the number of people killed or seriously injured on Northamptonshire's roads last year was 275. 2024 figures also showed 1632 casualties.
Keeping your car road worthy is part of making sure you are safe on our roads.
But when it comes to safety it seems many of us aren't taking it seriously enough. In 2023 Brake found that 41% of drivers turned off safety features in their car such as lane-keeping assistance and reversing cameras or sensors.
Whilst Brake is calling for more action on road safety from the government, Adam thinks car owners need to take responsibility for their vehicles.
"A lot of people are unaware that a lot of the garages do offer a free vehicle health check, and they're concerned that they're going to be pushed into buying things that they don't really need.
"But most of the garages that I know in, especially this area, offer a free vehicle health check."
His advice is to use these to keep their vehicle checked more than one a year with the MOT:
"Stagger your annual service and with a six month break, so you take it in for your MOT and then stagger your service to a six month break or using the free vehicle health check halfway through the year, just that the vehicle's getting checked more regularly and just once a year."
Meanwhile a Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Every death on our roads is a tragedy and the safety of our roads is an absolute priority for this Government.
“We’ve been clear that more needs to be done in this space, which is why we are committed to delivering a new Road Safety Strategy – the first in over a decade and will set out next steps on this in due course.”