Australian industry across the board has a genuine concern that a carbon tax will have a financial impact on every aspect of their businesses, increasing costs on each component.

 This means tyres will not escape the net. A carbon tax is likely to increase the cost of running a fleet of trucks, buses and vans due to the exhaust emissions of the vehicles.

 Increased costs will be felt even more considering the rubber industry seems destined to be controlled from a single, huge plant in Singapore in the coming years.

 Therefore tyre management will step in as the necessary course of action to maintain affordability in case of any carbon tax.

 Tyre management specialits Brad Bearman of Bear’s Tyres says it shouldn’t have taken the weight of a proposed carbon tax to make operators more aware of how tyres can be turned into a profit generator rather than a loss-maker.

 “An unfortunate habit has developed around the humble fleet tyre, and that is that almost right across the board, they are widely considered as a consumable rather than an asset,” said Mr Bearman.

 “For some time now, Australia has had at its disposal a simple, accurate means to manage and cost quantify the entire lifecycle of each and every tyre, but oddly it has mostly been thrown into the too-hard basket.

 “But now with the harrowing spectre of a carbon tax proposed for Australian industry, there has been a complete 180-degree turn by truck companies, bus operators, van fleets and other business dependent on vehicles.

 “They now know the imperative nature of extracting every single kilometre, every single day of performance from each and every tyre, to keep their tyre costs in check if the carbon tax should come.”

 Brad Bearman developed an aid for fleet managers, the Bear’s Tyre Tracker. It provides complete transparency, disclosing all running costs over the entire lifecycle of each and every tyre.

 It turns fleet tyres into a capital asset rather than a costly consumable, giving control of this asset to managers and owners rather than drivers.

 The tyre tracker consolidates all operations and depots under the one umbrella, providing extensive data for the hands-on side of tyre choice and maintenance as well as the white collar end, suiting accountants and planners too.

 Too many tyres are being retired too early or are wasted far too quickly, meaning money is squandered. With the tyre tracker, guesswork is taken out of the equation.