Winter tire use has grown across Canada at an average rate of four per cent annually, but far too many people are still putting their faith in tires that were never designed for the conditions to which they are being exposed, according to the Tire and Rubber Association of Canada (TRAC).
In B.C., four in 10 drivers are still relying on “all season” tires (those marked with M&S) and the reasons are disturbing.
Fifty-one percent of drivers with all-season tires believe that their tires provide sufficient traction.
“That’s just not the case, of course,” said Loren Bergen, manager of Hope’s Kal Tire.
“The M&S tires were never tested in snow conditions and the material the tires are made of starts getting hard at about eight degrees Celsius. That reduces its performance considerably.
“Winter tires are engineered to maintain the texture of the material into cold temperatures and they’ve had to earn that snowflake symbol through real-life testing in snow.”
“Despite increasing winter tire usage, educating drivers about the safety benefits of winter tires remains critical to making our roads safer in winter,” says Glenn Maidment, president of TRAC.
“Every motorist needs to understand winter tires radically outperform all-seasons in all cold-weather driving conditions.”
The superior traction and braking capabilities of winter tires are the result of advanced tire technology, particularly in tread design and rubber compounds. These advances have improved traction performance across all tire categories, but especially for winter tires. The “soft” tread compounds in today’s winter tires retain their flexibility even in extreme cold. At temperatures at or below seven degrees Celsius, winter tires provide significantly better traction than all other types, providing greater control on all cold-weather road surfaces and significantly shorter stopping distances.
Drivers who are confused about their tires need only look at the symbols on their tires. Unless their tires have the snowflake symbol, they are not winter tires.
“A real snow tire is by far the safest,” said Bergen, adding that those people (21 per cent) who are concerned about the cost of winter tires should reconsider.
“If your leaving Hope and going up into those hills you should have a snow tire. It only makes sense and it’s not a place where you want to be saving money. What is your safety worth?”
