Eighteen-wheeler trucks are a crucial tool for moving freight, but a new study has found that American drivers have “shockingly high levels of ignorance” about the condition and maintenance of the tires that encase those wheels.
The research found a clear gap between what people know and what they should know about their tires. This lack of knowledge contributes to almost half (47%) of Americans admitting to driving on bald or severely worn tires and an additional 46% having experienced a tire blowout while driving, according to Anyline, a provider of mobile data-capture technology for fleet maintenance.
The numbers come from an online survey of 1,041 U.S. consumers conducted in November 2022. The results show that 39% of U.S. drivers rely on professionals to know when it’s time to change their tires, and 33% of drivers decide to get new tires only after experiencing performance issues. In addition, the survey found that even those who do know how to check tire-tread depth typically use outdated or inaccurate methods.
“The consumer tire survey indicates the urgent need for more modern tire service maintenance tools to provide U.S. drivers with real-time digital information on the health of their tires and, ultimately, improve overall road safety,” Vienna, Austria-based Anyline said in a release.
According to Anyline, one solution is to use the company’s data-capture tools, which can scan tire sidewalls, tread depth, and vehicle data using any standard mobile device or camera-enabled tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS).
