Tyre Safety Bands for Caravans

Everyone has heard of tyre safety bands but opinion about them can be varied. Here’s a selection of the views I often hear:

“Tyre safety bands are unnecessary on modern wheel rims”
“Well worth it when you think of the damage that a shredding tyre can do to the bodywork of the caravan”
“You’re better off looking after your tyres than wasting your money on tyre bands.”
“Happily we had Tyron Safety Bands fitted, which I must say worked extremely well”
“Tyre fitters hate them – some refuse to work with them”
“I wouldn’t tow without them”

So where does the truth lie? Let’s start by looking at what a tyre safety band is and what it does. To understand this we need to look at the design of the wheel rims to which tyres are fitted.

To enable tyres to be easily fitted and removed all wheel rims have a ‘well’ into which one side of the tyre can drop so the other side can be levered off the rim. This then facilitates the removal of the remainder of the tyre. As those who have watched tyre fitters at work will know, this whole process takes just seconds – once the tyre has been deflated.

Herein lies the problem. If you have a puncture or blow out whilst towing the tyre will deflate and, with no air pressure to hold it in place, it will tend to drop into the well. Once this happens it can easily shred or come off the rim. The result can be loss of control of the caravan with serious consequences – possibly even overturning.

Tyre safety bands work by filling the well. The tyre is therefore much more likely to stay in place when deflated. It is held firmly on the rim facilitating braking and preventing the rim from contacting the road. This means it is much easier to keep the caravan under control and bring it to a safe stop at a convenient place. It also means the tyre is less likely to shred and damage the caravan.

But, yes, tyre bands do make the tyre fitter’s job more difficult. We’ll come back to that later.

40 Years ago, with the advent of tubeless tyres, wheel rims began to be produced with a safety hump at each side. The purpose of the hump was to help keep the tyre in place during cornering. The concern was that, if the tyre moved slightly to one side or the other, it could deflate as there was no inner tube to hold the air in. As a bonus the safety hump, or ‘bead’ as it became known, would help to keep the tyre in place in the event of it becoming deflated.

Virtually all modern rims have this safety bead. That is why some people believe that tyre safety bands are unnecessary. I took this picture of a typical caravan wheel rim in my local accessory shop. The safety beads can clearly be seen, so can the well.

One of my correspondents has an Ace caravan and was told that it did not need tyre safety bands because the centre well was not very deep and the rims had an extra large hump at each side to keep the tyre in place. So he set off for France and, on an auto route there at 60+mph, one of his caravan wheels suffered a blow out. “There was a terrific bang and, through my mirror, I could see bits of tyre and caravan flying off. The caravan snaked between the two lanes before flipping over in the outer one hitting several cars in the process. Our holiday was ruined”

In that instance tyre safety bands might well have allowed the caravan to have been brought to a controlled stop with minimal damage. Indeed, the holiday could probably have continued once the wheel had been replaced.

I believe that if a tyre fitter can remove a tyre in seconds then the tyre could easily remove itself if it deflated whilst travelling. The forces at work when travelling at speed easily equate to those available to the tyre fitter through his machine.

To remove a tyre from a rim fitted with a safety band the tyre fitter first has to remove the safety band. Once the new tyre is on the rim the band must then be refitted before the tyre can be inflated. The whole process can be fiddly which is why some tyre fitters don’t like safety bands and may wish to charge a little extra for the privilege of dealing with them.

Tyre bands are held in place with a recessed bolt. This needs to be undone with a long Allen key. When tyre bands are fitted you are normally given one to keep on the van because not all tyre fitters have them.

The main make of tyre safety bands available in the UK is Tyron. Their products are well thought of and are used by the police and military. In recognition of the inconvenience of coping with tyre bands when changing a tyre they have produced a lightweight rig to make the job much easier. It works by holding the tyre to one side of the rim so the band is easily accessed. The whole thing weighs less than 3 kg and is easily dismantled for stowage.

It’s not essential carry one of these rigs but they do make the tyre fitter’s job that much easier.

Conclusions
Punctures and blow-outs can happen at any time without warning, even on seemingly good tyres. Once a tyre is deflated it can drop into the “well” of the wheel rim. When this happens the results can be catastrophic, especially if travelling at speed. Tyre safety bands prevent this thereby providing an extra level of insurance. Would you want to tow without them?