DRIVERS may be flagged down at random by police at checkpoints in Teesside this week.

Cleveland Police are looking out for worn and wrongly inflated tyres to help reduce road casualty figures.

Working with the Tyre Industry Council, the force says its main aim is to help drivers.

Inspector Steve Lawson, head of Cleveland's Road Policing unit, said: "The campaign is not aimed at prosecuting drivers with defective tyres.

We are aiming to work with motorists by helping them recognise a worn or incorrectly inflated tyre and explain the benefits and importance of having serviceable and safe tyres on their vehicles.

"We hope to emphasise the importance of serviceable tyres on trailers, caravans and motorcycles as well as cars and goods vehicles,'' he said.

The minimum legal tread depth is 1.6mm for cars but in certain conditions tyres with less than three millimetres of tread depth will start to deteriorate.

Worn and incorrectly inflated tyres can contribute to accidents while a tyre correctly inflated in line with the manufacturers' recommendations could save a life.