OEReplacement News

There’s law associated with winter driving. It’s the same law regarding weather as the rest of the year, but it means something different. Essentially, the law says that if you have a weather-related accident, it’s your fault, not the weather’s. Legally, you are required to do whatever it takes to avoid trouble in winter weather. And if you haven’t made the proper preparations, that might mean staying home.

Some parts of the world–Quebec comes to mind–have legal requirements for winter driving, like approved snow tires during certain months. Snow tires, certainly, are the most basic and most helpful item in your arsenal; as the old saying goes, “All season tires are no-season tires.” It’s not just the specialized snow treads that matter. Tire compounds are formulated for temperature. In the summer, road surfaces can easily reach 140 degrees F; rolling tires heat up much more. Summer tires are formulated with rubber compounds that resist heat; in the winter, they become hard and slippery. Snow tires, on the other hand, stay pliable in subzero conditions, and additionally usually have silica or other particles embedded that interact at a molecular level with ice to provide extreme grip. All season tires are a compromise, at best.

There was a time when if you lived in Louisiana, of course you didn’t need snow tires, but with major blizzards all across the south, and many feet of snow on the ground as far south as Georgia and Arizona, that’s no longer true. Everyone in the country has by now seen how useless all-season tires are in real snow, even on an all-wheel drive vehicle; after all, they don’t stop any better than any other car, and often worse, because of their weight.

That leads to the single most important factor in safe winter driving: awareness of your limitations. Anyone who lives in snowy areas has seen big four-wheel drive trucks and SUVs, driven by overconfident owners, on a flatbed destined for the crusher after going off the road. Expensive all-wheel drive cars give their owners a sense of invulnerability, but they do nothing about the laws of physics. Nor do they do anything about written laws, which also have a real problem with bad winter driving.


Filed under: Industry News by Josh Razgunas On: April 9th, 2010