More than a quarter of cars have tyres in dangerous condition, according to new research.
Motoring services company Halfords, which conducted the research, is calling for mechanics who discover illegal tyres to be forced by law to upload vehicle registration plates onto a database used by police forces.
Earlier this month Halfords technicians checked more than 6,000 tyres on a random selection of 1,527 vehicles parked in long-term car parks at Edinburgh, Gatwick and Manchester airports, in partnership with car park operator NCP.
More than 25% of the vehicles had at least one tyre that was damaged, cracked, bulging or so worn it needed immediate replacement.
Flyers were left on windscreens to indicate that a vehicle’s tyres had been checked and whether further action was needed.
Halfords estimates dangerous tyres are a contributory factor in crashes resulting in around 7,475 deaths and serious injuries on Britain’s roads each year, which is four times more than incidents where drink-driving is to blame.
The company’s chief executive Graham Stapleton said: “This is the deadly legacy of the cost-of-living crisis.
“The tyre replacement cycle is a long way behind where it was prior to the pandemic as people continue to struggle with household bills.
“People are making tough choices about how they spend their money and unfortunately, road safety is taking a back seat right now.
“Police forces are very stretched, and officers often don’t have the tools they need to identify tyre defects when they attend incidents.
“As a result, there are many accidents caused by dangerous tyres which don’t get captured in the official statistics.”
The most recent Department for Transport figures show tyre defects were at least partly responsible for collisions resulting in 147 deaths and serious injuries on Britain’s roads in 2022.
Halfords has pledged to donate tyre tread depth gauges to police forces across the UK so they are in every patrol car in an effort to boost data collection and enforcement.
The company said it is doing “all it can to make staying safe on the road affordable”, such as by expanding the range of tyres it sells to “suit all budgets” and introduced a buy now, pay later option.
Mr Stapleton said he wants the next government to “put a big emphasis on road safety”.
He went on: “That could mean an awareness campaign, but we also want to see major action on enforcement.
“For example, we have a farcical situation right now whereby a vehicle can come into a garage, be found to have illegal tyres or brakes, and yet there is nothing to stop it from being driven away.
“One solution would be for all garages to be mandated to upload registration numbers of offending vehicles to the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system used by police forces.”
ANPR involves cameras reading registration plates and checking them against database records.
Police officers are alerted when a vehicle should be stopped.
