Throwback Thursday: Safety tyre discount; explosion risk
Insurance Post’s Throwback Thursday steps back in time to August 1975 to remind you what was going on this week in insurance history, when safer wheels could slash your motor insurance premiums and concerns were raised about foam.
14 August 1975: Safety tyre discount
The Stewart Wrightson Group offered a 15% discount on insurance premiums to motorists that fitted the Avon Safety Wheel.
The wheel fitted any make and type of tubeless tyre car and was said to reduce the dangers involved in blow-outs by giving the driver greater control and opportunity to pull off the road.
The conventional wide well of a traditional wheels is replaced in this type by a narrower well covered by a steel band after tyre fitment.
According to Wikipedia, the fitting procedure was relatively troublesome and not popular with fitters, which resulted in this design of wheel not being widely adopted.
Explosion risk of stored foam rubber
An explosion risk of a “hitherto unknown type which may occur with fires involving foamed rubber” was outlined in Post.
The Fire Research Station stated an explosion risk may exist when the flammable smoke and vapours from the smouldering of large quantities of foamed rubber are confined in an enclosed space.
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