This is Getting Tyre-some!

Potholes – a costly problem

Last year – £1.18million was paid in compensation by councils for damages to vehicles by potholes across Scotland, figures released in January 2017 show.

Now more than ever we are suffering from our sub-standard infrastructure as local authorities fail to cope with, repair and prevent damage to roads.

This cannot go on. But, as funding cuts continue to bite, where will we find the answer?

An inventive solution

With Hawk Eye creative vision, Goodyear have stepped up to the plate – recently announcing the world’s first spherical tyre, the Eagle 360.

The tyre uses smart technology to adapt to the surface of the road – as an innovative solution to potholes and is the first tyre to make use of artificial intelligence, allowing the wheels to sense, decide, transform and interact with different road surfaces.

As well as sensing and adapting to the surface of the roads, these tyres can connect to the internet, allowing them to absorb the information about the road they are travelling on and upload the data to the cloud, sharing insights with other drivers travelling the same route. This would enable them to share the location of troublesome potholes with other drivers in the hopes that they could avoid them.

Reinvent the wheel? Or just fix the problem in the first place!

However, this exciting new invention is miles away from being widely accessible to motorists, and we can’t help but wonder – must we reinvent the wheel when we could just fix the problem in the first place?

Surely the government can tackle the problem of increasingly bumpy roads before we have to resort to tyres that can think?

An increasing problem

As we’ve said before, there’s no denying that our roads are in a sorry state.

In August 2016, Audit Scotland recognised an increase in the number of motorways in need of resurfacing from 30 to 42 percent in the past three years. On roads like these, inventive tyres like The Eagle 360 are needed more than ever as potholes are becoming an increasing problem for motorists.

These bothersome bumps are costly – not only for those who have to repair the damages caused by them, but also for the taxpayers who pour their money into filling the hole, a cycle which is costly and inefficient.

A long term fix

By getting to the deeper root of the problem, instead of papering over the cracks, the council could save money by avoiding compensation pay-outs for motorists with damaged vehicles.

Proper and effective road surface repairs would not only minimise costs, but could also stop road works that always haunt the same areas, slowing down traffic and inconveniencing hundreds.

The authorities would benefit by changing their approach to road repairs, tackling them head on, instead of in a roundabout way.

So, let’s not wait for technology to solve our (ever-increasing) problems further down the line but use some common sense and what we’ve already got to produce a more pleasant network for everyone.