evo_soul

Everyone has heard me talking about wintertires for our local car club here in Toronto. And I have urged everyone to buy tires if not from the TLC club from anywhere while you still can, because once the affordable tires are gone here in Ontario, they will be very scarce for the rest of the season, and only expensive options will remain.

So I say this for the last time. If you have a lancer, and you want winter tires at a damn good tire, weather its for a 18" wheel EVO X or a older generation 14" lancer. Get your tires now. Because when my stock is gone. thats it. I will be taking down the threads and wont entertain questions about tires. Its not law here in Ontario, but Winter tires are worth every penny. If you have never used Winter Tires, trust me, you will never go back to all seasons again. They are that good. That and the fact that the stock OEM tires are a death trap.

The prices are good and they are the best Deep Snow and Ice tires on the market.


Here is a snipit from the globe and mail

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071220.TIRES20/TPStory/National

Winter tires will be mandatory in Quebec by the fall of 2008
RHÉAL SÉGUIN

December 20, 2007

QUEBEC -- Quebec has become the first province to require car owners to install winter tires on their vehicles as part of a new road safety law aimed at reducing fatal accidents.

It will become mandatory next fall for all vehicles to be equipped with a full set of winter tires from Nov. 15 to April 15. Currently, 90 per cent of Quebec drivers switch to winter tires. But Minister of Transportation Julie Boulet wanted to make snow tires compulsory, even though buying them will represent an additional cost for some owners.

"There is no price when it comes to road safety," Ms. Boulet said yesterday. "What we want is to save lives and this is just one of the measures that will allow us to do this."

Last year, 717 people died as a result of accidents on the province's roads.

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The new law also prohibits drivers from using hand-held cellphones, a measure that will be gradually introduced beginning Jan. 1. This was a controversial proposal made by the task force on highway safety this fall, and the government decided to implement it immediately, convinced that cellphone use has become a serious obstacle to safe driving.

The province will also begin testing photo radars and cameras at traffic lights in 15 communities across three regions of the province as part of a pilot project to evaluate their efficiency in reducing accidents. Furthermore, it will be compulsory for new drivers to take driver education courses, and heavy trucks will have to be equipped with governors to limit their speed to 105 kilometres an hour.

In the fight to reduce drinking and driving, Premier Jean Charest's minority government failed to receive support from opposition parties to drop the blood-alcohol limit from 0.08 to 0.05. Ms. Boulet had proposed suspending the driver's licence for 24 hours of anyone caught driving with a blood-alcohol level above 0.05 but less than 0.08. She said there would no fines or demerit points, arguing that it was simply an "administrative penalty" aimed at discouraging anyone who consumes alcohol from driving.

However, the Action Démocratique du Québec asserted that the measure was targeting the wrong people. ADQ transportation critic Pierre Gingras said it was "inadequate" because it was penalizing those who drink moderately while doing little "to take the repeat offenders, real criminals, off the road."

The Parti Québécois said some drivers could be wrongly penalized by their insurance companies and would have no legal recourse if they were falsely accused of breaking the law. PQ critic Serge Deslières argued that the government would be better off hiring more police officers, and strictly imposing the current 0.08 limit if it was serious about reducing fatalities.

The Liberals accused the opposition parties of bowing to pressures from bar owners who feared a major drop in business if the stricter blood-alcohol limit was adopted.

Ms. Boulet said 6 per cent of all fatal drinking-and-driving accidents involved people who had a blood-alcohol level between 0.05 and 0.08. She said that would average out to about 12 deaths a year. "We believe this measure would have saved that many lives. Each life is worth saving and we strongly believed it," the minister said yesterday. But she was forced to drop the measure in order to ensure yesterday's adoption of the bill.

icecube172

Making winter tires mandatory isn't going to solve the problem. winter car accidents are caused by BAD/CARELESS DRIVERS, making them put on winter tires may help but it don't solve the problem.

It will also put financial stress on poor families, i don't see anywhere in the article mention that the Quebec Provincial government will set aside a budge to help the poor family getting winter tires.



if this thing really take off I should open up shop to sell winter tires there!

aj_pierce

Thats true. Look how many accident's happened in your area soul. Lil bit of the white issh comes down and people forget how to drive. Well I think its because they don't know how to drive in the first place. Take last night for instance. Had some dude pass me on the shoulder of the 401, and I was in the slow lane doing 120 and then cut me off. WTF is that about. Then theres those classic people who run through stop signs while I already at a complete stop at a stop sign in a school zone. From my experience People need to remain more cautious when it comes to driving need to obey the laws that are in place

Side story, First major snow storm of the season. Driving up to K-town to see my Girl Took me almost 4 hours to make the trek while its usually 2.5 because all of the accidents. ust have been at least 11 or so. SUV into Guard rail. Civic in ditch (with steelies BTW Possibly snow tires) Rig sitting the the back of a Protege. etc.

Were these incidents a result of idividuals being poorly equipped for the road conditions or because of a lack of training for the conditions or because of a lack of respect for the natural forces that attack us year after year? Personally I don't know about this. But what I do know is that I made that trek with the stock all seasons and made it just fine.

Sure I would agree that the winter tires help with control of a vehicle just like electronic safety features of a vehicle but when the individual doesn't know how to drive according to conditions they are useless.

Whenever I'm driving with my buddy and we observe some stupidity on the road such as somebody cutting us off or failing to stop or what ever we usually get pissed drive next to the and scream " where did you get your license, out of a cerial box?" Because that seems to be a logical excuse for the way some people drive their vehicle.

Sorry for the rant I just don't think that there should be legislation for this. What I do believe is that doing what the legislation is suggesting is one of the smarter choices that everybody should invest in. A lot of times you will end up saving yourselves, your car and somebody else in the process.

So Putting my rant to an end. Drive smart and drive safe!

evo_soul

lol you guys are talking to me like I am the one that passed the law. lol I personally disagree. they should be going at this from the other direction and further enhancing cars at the manufacturer level. There is no reason why Stability / Traction control cant be a standard feature. but forcing people to buy winter tires leads to problems. people who dont have money, getting fines, that they cant afford. in the end makes no sense, and on the higher side of it, a 300 dollar fine or so, might not be enough to scare people with money to get the winter tires.

Its a bad idea

GNR

its better than $500.00 deductible ur insurance.. winter tires is manatory. I would been caught driving without snow tires... Ontarios winters r mostly icy roads... Quebec did a test, mostly people without winter tires causes most accidents...

XenoVibe

This makes me wonder.. what would happen if someone owned a vehicle winter stored, would they still force winter tires and what if its a vehicle with high performance tires.. do they really expect some generic dealership snowtires to be better?

What next Trucks requiring tire chains?

P.S.
Its okay, I dont hate you EVO_SOUL.
..lol

spydahman

Your argument is somewhat contradicting to the point you're trying to get across. We already know winter tires won't solve the problem. If you read carefully, they're not assuming winter tires will completely annihilate the problem either. The article evo_soul posted clearly says that "this is just ONE of the measures that will allow us to [save lives]." First-time winter drivers will have poor judgement on the winter road conditions. So really, winter tires just gives them a better chance at avoiding the slip and slide on black ice and gaining more traction in the snow. Wait a second, that's exactly what winter tires were made for, too. Cool!!

Realistically, if you can afford to drive (including purchasing the car itself, leasing and financing, soaring gas prices and high insurance rates), then a set of $400 - $500 tires that'll last for more than 5-6 years (especially since it's only mandatory to keep them on for 5 months of the year) shouldn't be a problem. Secondly, families shouldn't be stressing in the first place when considering their families lives. 717 fatalities in the last year due to road accidents puts this into perspective.

I don't know about you, but my family is important to me and so are their lives. I'm not saying they're bad drivers. But I am saying there are indeed bad drivers out there with poor judgement in bad road conditions - rain, fog, snow, etc. Those are the drivers we need to be looking out for, but unfortunately cannot always be so aware of them.

evo_soul

you guys are going to love this, the desperate situation in Quebec...




http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...hub=TopStories
Is Quebec's winter tire law leading to organized thefts?
Updated Thu. Oct. 30 2008 7:54 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff


A new law in Quebec which makes winter tires mandatory on provincial roads may have created an unlikely side-effect: rising winter tire thefts.


As parts of the province continued to dig out from the season's first major snowfall, some motorists near Montreal awoke Thursday to find that the winter tires had been stolen off their vehicles.


"My son leaves for work at 5:30 a.m. When he came out, he found his car on blocks and all four of his brand-new winter tires - and rims - gone. The only thing left (was) the bolts that held them," said Serge Robillard, a resident of Repentigny, which is about 25 kilometres north of Montreal.


Local police said they received three complaints of stolen tires this morning alone, and officers believe the thieves are well-organized.


Another local victim was the Des Cormier family, who also woke up Thursday morning to find that their vehicle was wheel-less.


"Four tires were gone, with the rims and everything," Denise Des Cormier told CTV Montreal's Caroline van Vlaardingen, adding that the tires were only a few days old.


Des Cormier said that she had to put the car's summer tires on again so her daughter could use it.


"My husband was saying that probably there were four (thieves)," said Cormier, noting that the thieves likely worked as a team, with one person grabbing one tire each.


Quebec's strict new tire law comes into effect on December 15 of this year, and drivers caught without winter tires could face fines of up to $300.


The law will be enforced from mid-December to mid-March, meaning that about two million extra winter tires, which range in price from $500 to about $1000, will be needed for Quebec drivers.


Even in September, many tire retailers were reporting shortages and warning that there might not be enough tires to go around when the snow hits.


Meanwhile, tire retailers like Montreal's Gordon's Goodyear have seen a massive increase in sales this season thanks to the law, said store manager Bill Gordon.


"We've doubled our business this year - no question," he said.


A recent study found that 90 per cent of Quebecers used winter tires, but that the 10 per cent who didn't were involved in a disproportionate share of road accidents.


Winter tires have better flexibility on cold days, perform better on ice and can slash snowy stopping distances by up to 25 per cent.


Quebec's law is only applicable to residents and not to drivers passing through the province.


With a report from CTV Montreal's Caroline van Vlaardingen