For this week’s change the world Wednesday Challenge, Reduce Footprints has asked us to visit “stop global warming“, use their carbon calculator and pick an activity to do for this week.

I’ve scanned down the list and one jumped out at me immediately - it’s to do with my car!

One of the suggestions is to keep our car tyres inflated correctly.

I know I’m particularly bad at this, so it’s going to be my chosen challenge for the week. According to the Stop Global Warming site, if everyone in the United States kept their tyres correctly inflated, gasoline use nationwide would come down by 2 percent. Isn’t that incredible!

I did a little reading around this subject and found there are three good reasons to keep your tyres inflated at the right pressure. Correct tyre pressure can help to improve vehicle safety, extend the life of your tyre,  and maintain fuel efficiency.

Safety

Tyres that are under inflated can overheat which increases the chance of it bursting. Over inflated tyres can lead to poor vehicle handling on the road. According to the site Tyre Pressures, low pressure on the front axle will increase understeerand low pressure on the rear axle will increase oversteer.

Economy

Over or under inflated tyres suffer more damage than those with the correct pressure and need to be replaced more regularly.

Under-inflated tyres wear down quicker along the walls of the tyre and over-inflated tyres will cause wear around the centre of the tyre. This is likely to lead to early replacements and cost you more money.

Vehicles with under-inflated tyres create more resistance when your car is moving. That means your engine has to work harder, so more fuel is used and more CO₂ emissions are produced.

Environment

Correct tyre pressures help to maintain optimum fuel efficiency. This can equate to lower Co2 emissions coming from your vehicle than those with incorrect tyre pressures.

So that’s my mind made up! Next time I’m out, I will call into a garage and check my tyre pressure.

What about you? What challenge will you pick for this week?

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