A new study conducted by the UK’s Highways England and tyre company Bridgestone has found that nearly three quarters of motorway incidents associated with tyre failure can be avoided with simple checks.

The 18-month study concluded that the motorists can reduce the chances of incidents by conducting regular checking on the vehicle tyres.

In 2016 alone, more than 30 people were killed or sustained serious injuries due to illegal or faulty tyres in the UK.

Highways England road safety head Richard Leonard said: “England’s motorways are the safest in the world but we’re determined to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on them.

“England’s motorways are the safest in the world but we’re determined to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on them.”

“This important research confirms our view that road users must play a bigger role and get into the habit of checking tyre pressures and tread depths and looking out for nails and other debris stuck in tyres before setting out on journeys. These simple checks could save lives.”

During the project, which started at the beginning of 2016, Highways England staff present at depots across the West Midlands delivered more than 1,000 pieces of tyre debris from motorways to Bridgestone technical engineering team for analysis.

The research revealed that around three quarters of these tyre samples were deteriorated due to poor inflation or debris penetration issues.

Out of 1,035 tyre segments analysed, 56% of tyres failed due to road / yard debris penetration, 18% due to poor inflation while 8% of tyre failures were caused due to poor vehicle maintenance.

Manufacturing defects and excessive heat caused tyre failure for 1% each of the total samples. The cause of failure for the remaining 16% of the tyre segments could not be attributed to any one problem.