Portugese campaign finds ‘a lot to do’ on safety

The Automobile Club of Portugal has concluded its nationwide road safety tour for the Think Before You Drive campaign with startling findings from spot check surveys around the country.

Club experts, together with safety staff from Bridgestone, took the messages of the campaign on the road during October and November 2005. During the campaign, the ACP conducted surveys on the key issues raised in the campaign: seat belts and child restraints, head restraints and tyre condition.

• ACP staff found that 90% of drivers had the head restraint system wrongly adjusted;
• Some drivers are still not aware of the requirement to use seat belts in the rear or of the penalty fine applied to these cases;
• There was concern at the number of old vehicles that still don’t have rear seat belts;
• Experts found that some child restraints were not suitable for the size and weight of the children and were often wrongly fastened;
• 59% of vehicles checked needed urgent repairs or replacement of tyres
• The best tyre results were found in the Lisbon area.  North and Algarve were the areas where tyre condition was worst. In the Algarve ACP and Bridgestone found a lot of cars with tyres that had a lot of cuts in the lateral tyre walls, very dry parched tyres without any road holding capabilities and different makes of tyres installed in the same axle.

There was also concern that many of the motorists who do check their tyre pressures are using inaccurate equipment. Bridgestone was sufficiently concerned by the findings to appeal to all service stations to have their air pressure gauges periodically calibrated in order to supply a better service to the customers.