Tyre Damage - is it safe to drive

thescouselander

alastairq wrote: »

The problem with any 'training' is that, to be meaningful it needs to continuous, rather than one-off.

In other words, to prevent skill-fade, training needs to be conducted regularly and frequently.

This is slowly coming about with the new regulations regarding vocational licence holders [CPC, etc], and is already in place with regards to ADI instructors, Examiners,as well as DSA-regitered [and equivalent] instructors.

Police, fire & ambulance...and even, some more enlightened bus companies..

It does not happen particularly with non-vocational licence holders, ie Cat B [car]..etc.....with the result that many end up learning, literally, the hard way.

[if not via collisions and crashes, then perhaps via the Courts and the legal system?]..or simply, trying to ''make things up as they go along?''



One doesn't 'rely' on training, one uses it.

If you believe there is a reliance on 'training', then you misunderstand completely, exactly what any sort of driver training is all about.



Re-action really has no place in driving either.....[being, as the word describes, an action after-the-fact.]

Pro-action being the name of the game.....'anticipation of the actions of other road users' is part of every driving test.

'Re-action' no longer has such a place.

Clearly you are not prepared for the unexpected. You might have a lot of faith in your powers of anticipation but there are circumstances in which anticipation will not help. If you're not prepared to react to the unexpected then that is a massive hole in your driving strategy - complacency is the silent killer as they say in safety circles.

bigjl

London Ambulance Service policy in recent years is to only remove a tyre from service if there are metal cords exposed or there is a bump or deformity on the sidewall.

The part of the tyre the OP has damages is apparently just the surface and not structural.

There was some scepticism on part of staff using the vehicles but there have been no blowouts or crashes relating to tyre issues so I assume this vindicates the policy, this policy would have been agreed after discussion with VOSA and Met Police so not just the whim of a fleet manager trying to make a name for himself.

They also introduced tyre puncture repais at the same time, along the same lines as kwifit, no sidewall punctures and more than a certain distance to the edge of the tyre tread.

I suspect both policies where intended to save money, and as any damage to any sidewall no matter how minor resulted in a new tyre I think it probably succeeded.

There are hundreds of thousands of cars on the roads with damage like the OP's.

If I was in the same position and short of money I would run with it, if I was flush then I would probably change it and perhaps put the damaged one on as the spare.

Only my two pence worth, feel free to feel differently.

alastairq

Clearly you are not prepared for the unexpected.

Aaaahh, that old chestnut?


I used to try and deal with the 'unexpected'....when I was a new driver, decades ago...used to think that 're-action' was the only solution [like, posh tyres?}.

Then I worked as a bus driver.....and discovered that, in order to protect and preserve the safety and well-being of my passengers, I really had to learn to deal with this mythical 'unexpected' event....otherwise I would likely end up having to explain my actions, and not very successfully at that.

I soon learnt that, what, in my inexperience seemed to be 'the unexpected', really was an actual shortfall in my methods of observation...what to look for, and when......

How on earth do you think...for example...a Police traffic Officer driving at 80mph through a built-up area, deals with the potential of the 'unexpected?'


Or...don't you think they do?


[and in fact, rely upon sheer luck..ie drive with their fingers crossed?}


Appropriate observation, linked to speed control and position, deal with the 'unexpected' you seem so fond of.

If a driver cannot cope comfortably with what you deem as an 'unexpected' event, then they have ignored the information that is there to see and read......and are driving too fast to cope .

Vehicle speed at a given point, must be directly linked to the driver's ability to 'look',' act on what they see', and an additional element allowing the vehicle to do what the driver wants it to do.

It's not rocket science.... thousands of trained, skilled drivers out on the roads do it every day, driving even the most cumbersome and awkward of vehicles.

The processes which allow a Police officer to safely conduct a car at high speeds within a 'hazardous' area can, and should be, easily translated down to the ordinary driver travelling at ordinary speeds.

Of course, you can forget about all that if it is too inconvenient for you to do.....thus you will have to rely upon technology, expensive tyres and everything else to deal with your 'unexpected' situation.

Dunno what drivers did 40 years ago, however........they certainly didn't go around crashing everywhere.....and they didn't have the sort of technology so easily available today to help them....!

vaio

alastairq wrote: »

.......How on earth do you think...for example...a Police traffic Officer driving at 80mph through a built-up area, deals with the potential of the 'unexpected?'

Or...don't you think they do?

[and in fact, rely upon sheer luck..ie drive with their fingers crossed?}......

sadly crossed fingers doesn't always work

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/local/police-car-crashes-into-house-1-4574593

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-18063978

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-17648880

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17089142

etc etc etc

Sgt_Pepper_2

Traffic cars don't run on 4 mismatched ditch finders either.

Lum

vaio wrote: »

sadly crossed fingers doesn't always work

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/local/police-car-crashes-into-house-1-4574593

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-18063978

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-17648880

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17089142

etc etc etc

And this is my point about tyres. No matter how well trained somebody is, nobody is infallible and eventually some of your officers are going to screw up. There is no maybe or might here, eventually even the best driver in the world is going to make a mistake.

And WHEN that mistake happens, your decent tyres and so on, could make the difference between avoiding a collision or killing somebody.

They're a contingency. Alistairq is correct to say that drivers shouldn't rely on the ability of modern tyres, but I still firmly believe in having them as a contingency.

alistairq wrote:

Dunno what drivers did 40 years ago, however........they certainly didn't go around crashing everywhere.....and they didn't have the sort of technology so easily available today to help them....!

ORLY?


Source - Statistics: DFT. Graph: SafeSpeed

thescouselander

Lum's right. The swiss cheese model is often used in safety analysis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

The ability of the driver to anticipate their surroundings in only 1 layer of the cheese. Having decent performance in terms of braking is another layer - the better this is the better the mitigation to driver mistakes (which are inevitable no matter who you are).

alastairq might think he's safe but a less complacent driver of equal skill with in a vehicle that has better braking performance will be safer overall.

mikey72

alastairq wrote: »

Aaaahh, that old chestnut?


I used to try and deal with the 'unexpected'....when I was a new driver, decades ago...used to think that 're-action' was the only solution [like, posh tyres?}.

Then I worked as a bus driver.....and discovered that, in order to protect and preserve the safety and well-being of my passengers, I really had to learn to deal with this mythical 'unexpected' event....otherwise I would likely end up having to explain my actions, and not very successfully at that.

I soon learnt that, what, in my inexperience seemed to be 'the unexpected', really was an actual shortfall in my methods of observation...what to look for, and when......

How on earth do you think...for example...a Police traffic Officer driving at 80mph through a built-up area, deals with the potential of the 'unexpected?'


Or...don't you think they do?


[and in fact, rely upon sheer luck..ie drive with their fingers crossed?}


Appropriate observation, linked to speed control and position, deal with the 'unexpected' you seem so fond of.

If a driver cannot cope comfortably with what you deem as an 'unexpected' event, then they have ignored the information that is there to see and read......and are driving too fast to cope .

Vehicle speed at a given point, must be directly linked to the driver's ability to 'look',' act on what they see', and an additional element allowing the vehicle to do what the driver wants it to do.

It's not rocket science.... thousands of trained, skilled drivers out on the roads do it every day, driving even the most cumbersome and awkward of vehicles.

The processes which allow a Police officer to safely conduct a car at high speeds within a 'hazardous' area can, and should be, easily translated down to the ordinary driver travelling at ordinary speeds.

Of course, you can forget about all that if it is too inconvenient for you to do.....thus you will have to rely upon technology, expensive tyres and everything else to deal with your 'unexpected' situation.

Dunno what drivers did 40 years ago, however........they certainly didn't go around crashing everywhere.....and they didn't have the sort of technology so easily available today to help them....!

Ah, the old "I'm so trained,nothing is unexpected, because I expect the unexpected, so can prepare for it." Problem is the police traffic officer still crashes when he cocks that up just like everyone else, when he finds he hasn't really got the handle on the unexpected, and it was indeed just that, unexpected, and he just couldn't get his mind to accept there were situations he couldn't anticipate and allow for. When you stop learning, or belive you can now stop because you now know everything you need to know, then you really are beyond any help, and no longer safe. When you challenge yourself, and challenge your mindset, and realise some things you can't control, or indeed see to anticipate, and allow for that, then you are still learning each day, and become safer again. And when you accept technology will help you to enable that, you become even safer.

Lum

It's the same as any serious failure. You can see this on any of the air crash investigation programs. It's always a combination of factors e.g. random mechanical failure, lapse inspection practices, adverse weather and the failure of the pilot to notice the problem in time. Remove any one of those failures and the problem might not have happened.

Alistairq's posts are starting to sound rather like the people who say "I don't need any security, I've got a Mac and they're infallible" and then promptly connect directly to the internet with no antivirus and no firewall at which point their machine promptly gets owned the first time they visit a scammy website by accident. Meanwhile loads of average people running "crappy, insecure" Windows XP installs with a decent AV, firewall and update notification mechanism manage to survive just fine.

alastairq

When you stop learning, or belive you can now stop because you now know everything you need to know, then you really are beyond any help, and no longer safe. When you challenge yourself, and challenge your mindset, and realise some things you can't control, or indeed see to anticipate, and allow for that, then you are still learning each day, and become safer again.

Absolutely!

[and indeed, nowhere have I even hinted that I now 'think I know it all'!]

It may appear like that to a lay-driver...but actually that is exactly what I'm paid to do......have all the answers when required.[ along with the 400 or so others where I work, of equal or even greater skill, knowledge or experience in the field of driver training, assessment and education].

The people who actually have 'stopped learning' are generally those ordinary drivers out there....who have not so much made a conscious decision they they ''don't need to learn''...but who simply cannot be bothered to learn.

However, I made a statement which you lot find difficult to accept. [yet...unless you've all been running into things this past week, you ave in fact been busy proving what I said..but from your own perspectives?}.....You folk present what in general terms are ultimate case scenarios.

So far, the only solutions to the problems you claim exist everywhere have been 'to fit much better tyres and rely upon ABS'.


Nowhere have any of you put forward the answer to the inevitable question that follows......

That being, what are you going to do when..inevitably, even the very best tyres you have been able to afford, fail to deliver what you so desperately need?


I have offered the accepted solutions to the issue you all seem so afraid of...others have perhaps been more eloquent about it....but as I said, take a trip to your local WH Smiths and buy yourselves a copy of 'Roadcraft'...and without cynicism, work through it.

Or..book your selves an IAM or RoSPA advanced course.



Everyone makes mistakes.....that is a fact.

The important thing is, whether one learns from those mistakes , in a positive manner?

Or whether one resigns oneself to the concept that some things are beyond your control?



With regards to the example of Police driver errors?

For sure, they make errors.....and they pay a far higher price for those errors than you would.

But nowhere will you find a conclusion to a driver investigation that comes up with ''!!!!!!-happens!''

Somewhere down the line, the driver error is identified....

but, more importantly, efforts are made by all concerned, to identify how to eliminate that sort of error being repeated in the future.


It's not the car, or the tyres...it's the driver...as I said before.