According to the National Highway Safety Traffic Safety Association (NHSTA), every year low tire pressures cause 660 fatalities and 33,000 accident-related injuries. Checking and re-checking your tire pressures regularly is the single easiest DIY maintenance item out there, yet the Rubber Manufacturers Association claims that only 20% of drivers correctly check them.
Keeping your vehicle's tires properly inflated is not only about safety either. A single under inflated tire can be responsible for a decrease in fuel efficiency by 3-5%, so it pays inflate, not mention saves on gas, airborne pollutants, global warming, etc...If you don't do it to save yourself or thy neighbor, do it save your wallet, it that isn't good enough, do it for the environment. Nitrogen or regular old US grade A "hot" will do.
So with all these incentives to check, why can't they be bothered?
Maybe the image of those old compressors at the corner gas station conjures up some repressed childhood memories of a flat tire on your favorite bike, or worse the thought of trying to drag around a tangled hose in the cold after digging between the seats for a couple of quarters to feed the mean (and loud) yellow box are just too much. Either way, we simply don't do it so the industry has been forced yet again to "dumb it down" for the consumer with the advent and adoption of the tire pressure monitoring system.
Tire pressure monitoring has been around for several years, but only now can be considered mainstream or "main street" as it is standard equipment on more vehicles. The system has been successful enough that legislation has been passed to require the feature on all new vehicles in the future. If you had to give credit to one, as when tend to do, the first vehicle with such a system may very well have been the famous Porsche Group B 959 of 1986.
Today, it is even possible to buy kits to retrofit vehicles with the system. By now, all tire shops have seen them and know how to work with them, though experiences will vary.
To see exactly what goes into a tire pressure monitoring system or TPMS, please click here. And for those who do it the old-fashioned way, get out there and check those tires, especially in the colder temps, and don't forget the spare.
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