Health worker's winter tyre lifeline

A health worker has put winter (cold weather) tyres on her car to help ensure she can continue her life-saving work come snow, rain, slush or ice.

Anne Joson is a biomedical scientist in haematology for the Mid-Cheshire NHS Trust and can drive hundreds of miles a week to carry out blood tests and provide dosages of medications such as warfarin to patients who are unable to travel to their local health centre. Warfarin is an anti-coagulant that can prevent strokes and blood clots. Anne also runs vital warfarin clinics for patients at centres in Nantwich, Crewe, Middlewich and Northwich.

The job she does saves people's lives and she needs both peace of mind for her own safety and the knowledge that she can get where she needs to be - no matter the weather - in order to fulfill her crucial role.

Anne is reliant on her own car, a BMW 325i, and also works night shifts at the haematology laboratory, putting her at extra risk of bitter weather when temperatures can plummet. The car is rear wheel drive, and can be prone to losing grip on slippery roads. The engine’s high torque also makes starts harder on ice or snow as wheelspin is more likely.

Anne, who has been a haemotologist for 20 years, said: “This is my first year with the car, so I thought it would be a good idea to fit winter tyres now as I’d heard from other drivers that this can be an issue when the weather takes a turn for the worse.”

She chose to fit a smaller diameter, 17 inch set of wheels with MICHELIN Alpin cold weather tyres in order to increase her car's grip on the road, and to make swapping between summer and winter tyres easier. Cold weather tyres are effective because they provide better grip and shorter stopping distances in cold, wet conditions as the tread is less prone to hardening in temperatures below 7 ºC. The tyres also have more sipes- small slits in the tread, to enable the tyre to better grip the road surface.

“They should benefit me a great deal. Last year the bad weather lasted from November to February and it was a bitterly cold winter”, she added.

“I'm definitely not looking forward to that sort of weather conditions again. Living in the countryside, I also have to contend with unsalted and un-gritted roads.Fitting winter tyres is reassuring for me and could prove essential for the patients I need to get to.”

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