Finances are strained for many of us at the moment, and the last thing anyone with strained finances wants is to incur a big, unanticipated expense, like damages incurred in a car accident. Crashes hurt more than just your wallet; they can also result in further expenses such as medical bills and insurance cost increases. California Highway Patrol took to its Instagram account to share one weird way to lower your chances of getting into a car accident: make sure your tires have tread on them.
Drivers can often get away with having bald tires in the summertime, though it’s irrefutably stupid to do so, and maybe us Southern Californians aren’t especially accustomed to driving in inclement weather conditions, but your tires still need tread to keep you safe, especially when roads are wet. It’s a lesson that the driver of an Infiniti in CHP’s Instagram post unfortunately had to learn the hard way, as their tires basically looked like racing slicks.
Another way to think about it
It’s winter — you know, the time of year when the weather brings various forms of precipitation quite regularly to most regions of the northern hemisphere? Well, that precipitation has a tendency to make the ground slippery.
Here’s a little anecdote for you. My father recently slipped and fell down a few wet concrete stairs, and the culprits were his old, worn-down rubber flip flops that didn’t have any tread left on the sole. Wet roads are just as slippery, and your car needs tread on its tires in order to avoid slipping and sliding around. Fortunately my dad’s fall didn’t incur any expenses other than the cost of some lidocaine lotion, but when a car slips or slides on a wet road, the results can be devastating, both physically and financially.
I get it, money’s tight, but if you think you’re saving money by driving on bald tires or by avoiding snow tires in colder climates, then you may end up having to pay for costly repairs or buy a new car altogether. We’ve covered how to tell if you need new tires before, but sometimes a little public shaming helps drive the point home. Make sure your shoes have tread on them and make sure your car’s tires do, too.
