摘要: |
The aim of this study was to estimate to what extent unstudded winter tires specifically designed for winter conditions in central Europe are used on passenger cars in Finland. The good performance of these tires is considered beneficial, but Nordic conditions are not what they were designed for contrary to the studded tires designed for the Nordic Countries. A geographically representative data sample (1,009 cars equipped with unstudded tyres) was obtained during the winter of 2011 in Finland, excluding the Aaland Islands. This was augmented by selected vehicle data from the vehicle register. The results showed that the proportion of tires originally designed for central Europe but used on Finnish passenger cars was 17.6% on average. There is, however, a degree of uncertainty, with the figure probably lying somewhere between 12.7% and 21.0%. Nonetheless, the proportion is high enough to be of concern in terms of road safety. These tires tend to predominate on certain makes of cars and on second-hand cars brought over from abroad. Thus potential safety measures such as awareness campaigns should be targeted at the owners of such vehicles, but should also be widespread, as unstudded winter tires may also be purchased online. |