The cold weather this year caused major transport disruption around the UK and resulted in problems for courier services firms, including parcel couriers, as well as many other motorists around the country. Unlike people in countries that are more used to such harsh conditions, most British drivers do not use winter tyres to help them get around on frozen roads.
However, writing in the Daily Telegraph, Alwyn Sambrook suggested that a rising number of individuals in the UK are coming round to the idea of replacing their tyres when temperatures dip below a certain point. The journalist specifically cited firms that provide courier services as being among those that are using the special driving equipment.
Commenting on the purchasing of cold weather tyres, he said: “[Their] rising popularity is no accident: from corporate fleet managers to parcel couriers, and from the emergency services to private motorists, more and more of us are realising that safety and mobility don’t have to get left out in the cold.” According to the writer, now is the perfect time to invest in such provisions. This may seem counterintuitive given that the mercury in thermometers up and down the land is starting to rise, but the writer noted that it is important for people to stock up before next winter.
He also pointed out that it is not only in snowy conditions that these tyres are beneficial. He remarked: “Millions of mainland Europe drivers swap from summer to winter rubber between October and March, negotiating roads that might be icy, rutted with compacted snow, wet, or merely dry and cold.” Confronted by diverse conditions, such people consider winter tyres to be “anything but a marketing ploy”, he suggested.
Experts do not believe that the harsh conditions seen in the UK in the run-up to and wake of the festive celebrations this year will necessarily be repeated during the next cold season, but they have not been able to rule out the possibility.