You would as the owner of the car; I don't see an issue. Less poor people on the road.
Should snow tyres be a legal requirement?
- Thread starter godinman
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You would as the owner of the car; I don't see an issue. Less poor people on the road.
The same person who pays for tyres with at least 1.6mm of tread at the moment.
Anyway, winter tyres... no, don't think they should be made a requirement with our unpredictable weather.
Having the country grind to a halt with the slightest bit of snow is part of what makes us British anyway!
Associate
Winter tyres being required would be too much given our weather I think. Would rather they attempted to find a way to try and encourage people to fit them of there own accord. Practically though I'm not sure how they could do that.
Soldato
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I see an issue, I wouldnt want to change my tyres when I have perfectly good set of currently legal tyres which are the same type all round, being told you would have to have a second set of tyres for the winter months because people cant drive in a bit of ice and snow for a couple of weeks a year is a ridiculous idea, and it took me 15 minutes to get out of my road this morning!
Thats totally different, 1.6mm of tread and below is dangerous for a lot of reasons, you would simply replace them with any normal tyre
Caporegime
My wife was listening to "You and Yours" on Radio 4 the other day, and someone suggested that the council should have a stock of snow chains that people can use over the winter. Pay a deposit, use the chains over winter, then return them for your deposit less some small fee.
Probably a million reasons it wouldn't work, but hey...
Probably a million reasons it wouldn't work, but hey...
Something of note is that there are areas in Switzerland where there are local winter tyre restrictions in place (and also others where you need winter tyres and chains), even if it isn't a federal requirement.[TW]Fox;17915447 said:
Additionally, with regards to insurance situations, use of summer tyres in winter means you can be liable for something that would not in summer situations be your fault. E.g. you are driving along the road and someone is stuck across it, and you cannot stop in time and hit them. If the person stuck is using summer tyres and the prosecution argues that one can be sure beyond reasonable doubt that they would not be stuck with winter tyres, the driver with the summer tyres can become jointly liable.
I am not sure what scope there is in UK legislation for something similar to happen i.e. argue the vehicle isn't roadworthy considering the conditions, you were driving carelessly etc.
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That's what the discussion is about, numpty.
If the climate trend is going to continue as the gulf stream dithers away and we get more of this artic weather, then I think discussion will be coming up every year. Of course if you're a person who relies on your car then you won't need legislation to convince you to be better prepared.
Soldato
maybe if people bought decent tyres in the first place and not the cheapest they could find they wouldnt get stuck as much. Or maybe just leave the car at home and get the bus. I had a 4x4 last year, but i went to work on the bus when it was snowy. I had no doubt that i could get there in my car, but after i saw all the idiots sliding around i didnt want the hassle of someone else hitting me.
Soldato
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I'm sorry numpty? This is a discussion is not, if I dont agree with you why do you get defensive and give out pathetic names like numpty from behind your keyboard?
Oh no snow and ice, climate change, lets make everyone have two sets of tyres a year that'll make everything ok! Magic snow tyres! Owning a car is expensive enough without ridiculous requirments that they dont even have in countries that deal with this sort of thing for a lot more of the year than we have to and on a much worse scale.
Makes me laugh it really does, come Febuary/March it'll all be forgotten about until next year
Oh no snow and ice, climate change, lets make everyone have two sets of tyres a year that'll make everything ok! Magic snow tyres! Owning a car is expensive enough without ridiculous requirments that they dont even have in countries that deal with this sort of thing for a lot more of the year than we have to and on a much worse scale.
Makes me laugh it really does, come Febuary/March it'll all be forgotten about until next year
Ok, so we are only thinking about it for 5 of 12 months of the year... yeah, completely irrelevant
Associate
Why cant they just buy there own? All I hear around here is folk moaning the council are not doing enough, yet not one of them has prepared in the slightest. No winter tyres, no chains, no socks, hell most of them don't even own a decent ice scraper or shovel. Too much nannying and not enough personal responsibility for most them.
Soldato
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Ok, so we are only thinking about it for 5 of 12 months of the year... yeah, completely irrelevant
Soldato
I can honestly see winter tyres being a problem for quite a few of the population. Thinging that because they have them, that means they can drive just as idiotically in the snow and ice than they can in the dry summer months. "But I had winter tyres on!"
I see a lot of people using credit cards or just their hands, no de-icer, cars frozen up, haven't bothered cleaning their side or rear window, driving waaaaay too close to cars in front all the time. Its attitudes that need to change first. That will have a much larger effect on the accident rate than a bit or rubber that would give marginally better grip.
I see a lot of people using credit cards or just their hands, no de-icer, cars frozen up, haven't bothered cleaning their side or rear window, driving waaaaay too close to cars in front all the time. Its attitudes that need to change first. That will have a much larger effect on the accident rate than a bit or rubber that would give marginally better grip.
Ok so 5% of the time we drive around in snow. About 4 years of someone's life is spent travelling in snowy conditions - in fact, more time than is spent going to the toilet. Should we not bother with toilet paper, or toilet flushes?
We do things to improve our quality of life/ensure our safety/ensure our productivity for things that occupy far far less than 5% of our lifetimes, yet we ignore provisions for snowy conditions? Interesting.
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Ok so 5% of the time we drive around in snow. About 4 years of someone's life is spent travelling in snowy conditions - in fact, more time than is spent going to the toilet. Should we not bother with toilet paper, or toilet flushes?
Its hardly the same argument as we are discussing, changing something we already use which involves safety risk for something thats better (define better) is not the same as stopping using something at all
You could use your hand or a stick, as some people do. Toilet paper is not essential, just like snow tyres are not essential (you just need tyres; you just need something to take the crap off your backside).
Soldato
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I know snow tyres are not essential thats my point, I wouldnt want them to become a legal requirment for the reasons i've already mentioned and maybe its just me but tyres and toilet paper arent really comparable items in this context
The argument that we shouldn't mandate winter tyres because it's only for a couple of weeks a year is what I am focussing on. My point is that, actually, 5% of the time is a pretty significant proportion. The arguments for having tyres on them with >1.6mm of tread start to erode away when you think 5% of the time is not worth worrying about. A tyre with 1mm of tread will stop pretty decently in the dry, and the appropriately wet conditions that mean that the stopping distance is significantly increased are probably not much more than 5% of the time you are driving, and in those conditions stopping distances are only increased by maybe 100%, yet in bad winter conditions it can be many multiples of that.
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Soldato
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Maybe 1.6mm should be revised then, changing all four tyres for 5% of the year to me, seems like madness, especially when you consider how much difference these tyres actually make, seriously, how difference do they make? Its already been mentioned that people are stupid and winter tyres will surely = immortality, they can only help so much, ice is ice and tyres are tyres
Overall I see it as a pointless additional cost to already expensive motoring
Overall I see it as a pointless additional cost to already expensive motoring