Summary
In October 2026 TyreSafe offered free tyre inspections at four National Highways multi-agency events at motorway service areas across the North West, checking 102 vehicles. Around one in four (24 of 102) had at least one tyre at or below 3mm of tread, and 7 needed immediate action because of an illegal tyre, a damaged tyre or dangerously low pressure.
The events supported Regional Safety Programme Manager Lisa Scott’s delivery of the National Highways Autumn TRIP campaign, and ran alongside TyreSafe’s own Tyre Safety Month. They brought education and enforcement partners together on the strategic road network, which is exactly the kind of partnership working the Government’s Road Safety Strategy calls for.
Two campaigns, one message
TRIP. National Highways’ seasonal TRIP campaign asks drivers to prepare before long journeys: Top up, Rest, Inspect and Prepare. The autumn phase focuses on the “I”, asking drivers to check tyre pressure and tread before they set off. Offering free inspections on the forecourt put that message into practice.
Tyre Safety Month. October is also TyreSafe’s flagship Tyre Safety Month. This year’s theme, Act Before You REact, is built on TyreSafe’s research showing a gap between driver confidence and readiness: 83% of drivers believe they are in full control of their stopping distance, yet only 6% could correctly identify stopping distance in the wet at motorway speeds. The ACT checks (Air pressure, Condition, Tread) gave every conversation on the day a simple structure.
Partnership. The Department for Transport’s Road Safety Strategy (January 2026) sets out that casualty reduction rests on partnership between government, local authorities, road safety groups and emergency services. These events showed that approach working on the ground, with each partner bringing something the others could not.
The events
Each event combined education and enforcement. TyreSafe, National Highways, local authority road safety teams and fire and rescue services talked to drivers and checked tyres, while police commercial vehicle units and DVSA carried out routine enforcement alongside.
| Date | Motorway service area | Vehicles checked |
|---|---|---|
| 19 Oct | Lancaster (M6) | 40 |
| 7 Oct | Burtonwood (M62) | 20 |
| 2 Oct | Lymm (M6/M56) | 20 |
| 1 Oct | Charnock Richard (M6) | 22 |
Partners on site were National Highways and TyreSafe; Merseyside Police, Cheshire Constabulary and Greater Manchester Police; DVSA; Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service and Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service; Knowsley Council, Warrington Council and Lancashire County Council; and Halfords.
A visit from Westminster. Charlotte Nichols MP, Member of Parliament for Warrington North, visited the Burtonwood event. Her visit helped raise the profile of vehicle maintenance and of the partners working to keep the North West’s roads safe.
What we found
Of the 102 vehicles checked, 24 (24%) had at least one tyre at or below 3mm and 7 (7%) needed immediate action. At the three events where every advisory was recorded, nearly half the vehicles (37 of 80) had at least one tyre needing attention.
| Event | Vehicles checked | Needing immediate action | Tread ≤3mm (incl. illegal) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charnock Richard | 22 | 3 (1 illegal, 2 severely under-inflated) | 4 |
| Lymm | 20 | 2 (both illegal) | 5 |
| Burtonwood | 20 | 2 (tyre damage) | 5 |
| Lancaster | 40 | 0 | 10 |
| Total | 102 | 7 (7%) | 24 (24%) |
Air pressure
- At Lancaster, where pressures were checked on every vehicle, 10 of 40 (25%) had a pressure advisory. Where the placard was recorded, 7 of 12 were more than 10% off it.
- Two vehicles at Charnock Richard were running at just 6 psi and 13 psi, a serious blowout risk at motorway speeds.
- New cars are not immune: a 2025 car at Lymm and another at Lancaster were each about a quarter to a third under-inflated on all four tyres.
Condition, including age
- Burtonwood found a van with a puncture in the tyre shoulder, outside the repairable area, and a car with a deep sidewall cut.
- Of the tyres where date codes were recorded, four vehicles had tyres more than 10 years old. A tread gauge alone would have passed several of them.
- A quarter of vehicles at Burtonwood (5 of 20) had different tyre types on the same axle, such as summer and winter, a timely point going into winter.
Tread
- Three vehicles had an illegal tyre. The worst was down to 1.1mm with cuts in the sidewall; another was at 1.5mm on the inner edge, a sign of an alignment fault.
- At Charnock Richard the illegal tyre was on an LCV, which received a fixed penalty and a prohibition. At Lymm, both drivers with illegal tyres were given advice on replacing them.
Stories from the forecourt
- A 19-year-old “new” tyre. At Lancaster, a driver had just bought a part-worn tyre without realising it was made in 2007.
- Old tyres with good tread. At Lymm, a 15-year-old tyre still had 4.5mm of tread, and a pair of 6-year-old tyres with more than 5mm were visibly cracked. A tread check alone would have passed all three.
- Warning lights on long journeys. Several drivers pulled into the services with their tyre pressure warning (TPMS) light on, partway through long journeys to Devon, Birmingham, Cumbria and Scotland. We checked their tyres, set their minds at rest and sent them on their way safely.
- Close to the limit. One car at Lancaster had a tyre at 1.7mm, a tenth of a millimetre from being illegal.
About the data
Drivers volunteered for a free check. A tyre received an advisory if it had 3mm of tread or less, was more than 10% away from the recommended pressure or from the tyre on the other side of the same axle, or was over 10 years old; 1.6mm or less was recorded as illegal.
