Your Tyres will be Dobbers

David Heath
Monday, 14 April 2008 18:59

Your IT - Home IT

Recently enacted legislation in various European, Asian and North American countries mandates the installation of Tyre Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) for all new vehicles.  Due to amazing foolishness in the implementation of this technology, your car will be electronically identifiable up to a few metres away, ANYWHERE and by ANYONE.

I’m going to invite you to answer a series of “pop questions,” a la speedy Keanu Reeve. 

Pop question one: How often do tyre blow-outs occur in typical passenger cars?  The answer, very rarely.  We see blown treads on the highway, but they’re almost always from large trucks.

Pop question number two: how likely is you’ll notice that your tyres are under inflated by 20% or more?  Answer, this time: I’d guess that it’s pretty likely – an under inflated type is pretty obvious.

However, it is the unexpected answer to both of these questions that is driving the legislature to mandate TPMS. 

Phillip Zaroor, president of PressurePro (a leading TPMS vendor) quotes research showing excess petrol usage due to under inflation in the US is around 16 million litres per day.  According to the US Bureau of Transit Statistics, there are around 240,000,000 cars and light-commercial vehicles in USA.  This means that each vehicle on average wastes one fifteenth of a litre per day (big deal!).

The SEMA website also quotes The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety suggesting that 200,000 accidents in the US were caused due to blowouts in 2007 (less than 1 per 1150 vehicles).

Herewith we have the sum total of reasons to mandate the use of TPMS on all new vehicles.

Although trivial, this could be a good idea, right?  Unfortunately, no.