Tyre Industry Sharpens Focus on Tyre Safety Amongst Educational Institutes

Having held awareness drives at different campuses of Honda Cars, Infosys, ISRPL (Indian Oil) and Pipapav Port etc, the Rs. 60000 Crore Tyre Industry in India represented by Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) has launched a drive to reach out to university students and sensitize them about the important aspect of Tyre Care & Safety. ATMA is a group of 11 large tyre companies accounting for over 95% share in tyre production in India.

Interactive Session on Tyre Safety at Amity University

In a 2-day event held at Amity University Noida (NCR Region), young students were creatively engaged by holding tyre safety quizzes in the sprawling campus on tablet computers (tabs). The quizzes brought to the fore students' knowledge of tyres and the aspects related to tyre safety.

Amity University was chosen as the kick-off venue since a significantly large number of students use personal cars necessitating awareness on the critical difference that tyres make between a safe, fuel efficient and enjoyable ride or an unsafe, tiring and environmentally bad one.

"Today's upwardly mobile youth is highly conscious of the choices he or she makes in terms of personal mobility. Cars/SUVs are aspirational in nature and are often used to make a statement. A glance at the parking lots of a large university such as Amity proves this point amply. Unfortunately tyres or tyre care doesn't attract that much attention from the youth. Through this drive we tried to create awareness about criticality of tyres as a safety feature," said Mr. Rajiv Budhraja, Director General ATMA.

Indian Tyre Technical Advisory Committee (ITTAC) actively participated in the tyre safety drive at Amity University. Service engineers invited by ITTAC closely inspected tyres of a select sample of cars. About 40% of the cars had tyres which were underinflated, overinflated, worn out or not well maintained.

In an interactive session held with the students, the fact that tyre play a pivotal role in road safety being the only point of contact between a vehicle and the road, was brought home to the assembled students.

The interest evinced by the students in the interactive session was highly encouraging especially the Q&A wherein students raised certain pertinent points and enriched the discussion.

Graphically designed tyre safety booklets with interesting information on tyres were distributed free amongst students in the Amity University campus.

The campaign on Tyre safety came in the wake of recently held National Road Safety Week by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

As a responsible citizen, tyre industry has been creating awareness on Tyre Care & Safety through several campaigns. ATMA members which have been participating in Tyre Safety campaigns include Apollo Tyres, Birla Tyres, Bridgestone India, CEAT, Continental India, Goodyear India, JK Tyre & Industries, Michelin, MRF, TVS Tyres and Yokohama.