Bald tyres on a car

spiro

Jamez986 wrote: »

I was stopped in 2009 with 3 defective tyres. 2 were just under the limit and the other was down to the wire. I received 3 penalty points and a £60 fine. I understand that this is procedure as i was caught on 1 occasion with defective tyres therefore only punnished once.

Why reply to a thread that is over 3 years old??? :think:

thenudeone

Options are, in order of severity:
Verbal warning - i.e. no action, just a ticking off.
Vehicle Defect Rectification scheme - you have 14 days to get it fixed and the form stamped by an MOT garage (who can charge) and returned to the police. If so - no other action taken. If not - you will be prosecuted.
Endorsable Fixed Penalty - Fixed £60 plus 3 points. Guidelines state that up to 2 of these can be issued on the same occasion but if you have 2 illegal tyres you might just get 1 ticket. You can elect to go to court and defend it (and take the tyres to court if you wish!).
Prosecution - details already given. usually reserved for more serious or multiple defects.

Traffic Officers and other Authorised Vehicle Examiners can also issue prohibition notices and notices limiting how far you can travel. If your tyres are really bad, a normal bobby will call Traffic to enable a notice to be issued.

jase1

This is one case where I'd rather the OP go out and pick up four of the cheapest, non-matching ditchfinders, with plenty of tread, from the local scrapyard than continue doing what he's doing.

Stigy

I've just realised this thread is over 3 years old, but I'm going to reply anyway!

I was unaware that it's illegal to carry a defective spare in the car. Strange even more so that the law would deem a defective spare tyre illegal, yet it's not tested as part of an MOT test.

jase1

Thing is though that there is no real excuse to carry a defective spare. It doesn't get used much, you thus have loads of time to make sure it's OK and surely it's the first thing you check whenever you change a pair of tyres -- usually at least one of the tyres is legal, so replace the spare with the better tyre if the spare isn't that good.

That said, I'm starting to wonder if I could fall foul of the system myself -- I recently bought a wheel which has an illegal tyre on it (I'm pieceing together a second set of wheels to put some winter tyres onto). No room in the shed at present (really need to get round to sorting that one out), so it's sat in the boot of the car for now. There is a legal spare (with a good 5mm of tread on it) in there as well, but could a BiB get shirty about the "second spare"?

pompeyrich

jase1 wrote: »

Thing is though that there is no real excuse to carry a defective spare. It doesn't get used much, you thus have loads of time to make sure it's OK and surely it's the first thing you check whenever you change a pair of tyres -- usually at least one of the tyres is legal, so replace the spare with the better tyre if the spare isn't that good.

That said, I'm starting to wonder if I could fall foul of the system myself -- I recently bought a wheel which has an illegal tyre on it (I'm pieceing together a second set of wheels to put some winter tyres onto). No room in the shed at present (really need to get round to sorting that one out), so it's sat in the boot of the car for now. There is a legal spare (with a good 5mm of tread on it) in there as well, but could a BiB get shirty about the "second spare"?

They would only be interested IF you put the wheel on the car following a puncture or similar incident, they might also be interested in where the wheel came from, suspicion of theft maybe.
However in these days of traffic policing by camera, you would be pretty unlucky to get stopped.

jase1

I'll stick the receipt from the scrapyard in the glovebox then

Wig

Stigy wrote: »

I've just realised this thread is over 3 years old, but I'm going to reply anyway!

I was unaware that it's illegal to carry a defective spare in the car. Strange even more so that the law would deem a defective spare tyre illegal, yet it's not tested as part of an MOT test.

It's not illegal to carry a defective spare.

Wig

spiro wrote: »

Why reply to a thread that is over 3 years old??? :think:

To set the record straight, to put a balancing Point of view on a thread which was until then saying that you would get a ticket for each defective wheel. That poster got one ticket for 3 tyres.

AndyGuil

A bald spare tyre not fitted to the vehicle is not going to increase your chances of having an accident or affect the performance of the vehicle. Although it is daft to have a bald spare tyre.