This week, the folks from Goodyear in Akron, Ohio hosted a group of roughly 40 tire retailers and automotive media for their launch of the brand-new Assurance TripleTred All-Season tire.

I’ve been on a few wide-ranging trips with the German-based automotive supplier Continental, covering everything from vehicle-to-vehicle communication to collision avoidance systems, in locales from Detroit, Michigan, to Regensburg, Germany.

So, you’ve heard over and over that you need to check the pressure and tread on your car’s tires regularly.

What tires are you driving on? What kind of condition are they in? These are the kind of questions that can determine whether your next trip will be a safe one or not.

Come with me on an adventure to the Arctic Circle, where snow-covered evergreens line the horizon, Northern Lights dance across the night sky, and reindeer roam the land. We are in Ivalo, Finland where Nokian Tyres has the northernmost test track in the world.

As drivers, tires aren’t always on the forefront of our minds. We simply view them as rubber compounds that help to carry us safely down the road. It’s only when something goes wrong – a blown wheel or a slide in the rain – that we even think about our tires.

Well, that was quite the trip.

Most of us don’t worry too much about our tires, even though they’re one of the most vital components of our car. They’re the one thing — or four things, if we’re being literal — that keep hundreds of pounds of steel, plastic and cloth connected to the road.

We’ve come a long way from stone wheels and wooden hoops we used on carts and wagons in the past. Now, you have hundreds of types of tires to choose from when you go to the shop to pick up a new set for your car.

Tire pressure is one of those things that we can’t ignore. Not only is it illegal in most countries to drive with tires that are under pressured, but it’s also incredibly dangerous. If our tire pressure continues to fall unchecked, then we’re putting ourselves at risk needlessly.