You’re aware of Continental Tyres, right? We imagine most drivers are, since they’re renowned for engineering some of the best premium tyres in the world. Non-drivers may also be familiar with Continental, especially if they have an interest in football. The company have previously sponsored major tournaments, including the FIFA World Cup, UEFA European Championship, and UEFA Champions League.
While their worldwide reputation for advancing tyre technology forward is commonplace, a lesser known truth is that Continental are also a leader in the development or electronic automotive safety technology. Their global contribution is such that you probably already drive a vehicle – whether it be a car, SUV or 4×4 – which depends on their driver aids, and don’t even know it. Their technology is that good, and that highly regarded. After 150 years of being at the forefront of automotive driver safety technologies and initiatives, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise.
Take Continental’s ongoing global driver safety campaign – Vision Zero. Its ambitious goal is to achieve zero fatalities, zero injuries and zero accidents on the world’s roads, including here in the UK. That’s a huge ask, for sure, and not easy to achieve, but not impossible – especially as more and more motorists come to better understand the safety technologies available to them – such as premium tyres – so as to make a more informed choice about their driver safety.
The driver is THE central pillar in the Vision Zero initiative, alongside automotive, infrastructure, and tyre considerations. And it’s the desire to empower motorists with the knowledge and experience they require to make informed choices that are at the heart of Continental’s Vision Zero Live events.
Taking place in early autumn 2018, members of the public can apply to attend one of these free events in Donnington (Leicestershire), Dunsfold (Surrey), and Mondello (County Kildare), where they’ll experience first hand a series of real-world driving scenarios that demonstrate the differences between – and consequences of – good and bad automotive safety technologies.
As you’d expect from Continental, tyres will play an important role in the driver safety demonstrations, but it won’t be the only technology on view. As a leading manufacturer of electronic safety technology to the global automotive sector, participants at Vision Zero Live will experience the event through a series of six modules that are designed to highlight issues that arise in different driving scenarios and conditions:
Under Pressure
The importance that technologies play in maintaining tyre pressures, including the ‘life saving’ ContiSeal™ solution, that provides motorists with extended mobility when it really matters.
Sharing the Road
How distractions within the cabin, or outside on the road, can lead to accidents, and how to stay focused. You’d be surprised.
Stop the Crash
The increasing role that ADAS – advanced driver assistance systems – will have in achieving Vision Zero, including autonomous braking, and blind parking. Prepare to be enthralled.
Tread Carefully
Understanding why having good tyre tread depth is so important to driver safety, through first-hand experience on a skid pan. Brace yourself!
Why Premium?
Fully appreciating the difference in performance between premium tyres and their budget counterparts in very testing road conditions, including the Swedish ‘elk test’. Buckle up!
Black Chili
Why Continental’s superb compound makes such a difference to the performance of tyres, and a driving demonstration to prove it. Get your grip!
For this year’s events, Vision Zero Live is being supported by three of the country’s leading driver safety organisations: Brake, the road safety charity; The Institute of Advanced Motorists (through their IAM Roadsmart safety initiative); and TyreSafe, the leading UK tyre safety charity (of which both Asda Tyres and Continental are supporters). All three organisations are committed to making British motorists safer, through ongoing safety campaigns and education initiatives, and are highly regarded throughout the tyre industry.
As places for each Vision Zero Live event are limited, experience shows that demand to attend will be very high. With the guidance, experience and expertise of Continental’s hand-picked driver safety and technology team, participants will get to learn about – and experience, first hand – the real-world differences, and potential consequences, of choosing to fit superior or sub-standard tyres. It could be the difference between having an accident, and avoiding one.
Sound a little dramatic? Understandable, for the uninitiated, but many previous participants of Vision Zero Live would beg to differ, citing that the experience has been life changing.
“I’m that impressed by that, that I’m actually going to go and look to get them for my vehicle”
The resounding feedback from many of those who have already participated in Vision Zero Live can be characterised in four simple words: “Everyone should try this”.
Like Continental, we’re tyre experts too
We take driver safety very seriously. It’s why our experienced, dedicated tyre team are ready to answer all of your questions about which tyres are best for you. For impartial, expert advice, and the right fitting solution for your vehicle, contact Asda Tyres today. Click here to live chat to one of our experts, or find your nearest fitting station.