City ponders benefits of mandating winter tires during winter months
A squirrel checks out the tire pressure on a vehicle on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018, perhaps pondering whether it is time to change over to winter tires.
Should winter tires be mandatory for vehicles in Edmonton during winter?
That’s the question a city committee will ponder next week following a request earlier this year for administration to research and provide a report on the effects of mandating winter tires.
While acknowledging any regulatory changes would need to happen at a provincial level, the report, which will be presented to the community and public services committee next Wednesday, looks at Quebec as a case study of the effectiveness of forcing drivers to have winter tires on their vehicle each winter.
Quebec is the only province where vehicles registered in that province must have winter tires between December 15 and March 15. Introduced in 2008, the penalty for non-compliance is a fine from $200 to $300 issued to the registered owner.
Quebec has observed a 99 per cent or higher participation rate in all three recent winter seasons, the report says, adding that the province saw a five per cent net reduction in collision injuries and fatalities during the first two winters of enforcement.
A 2011 study by the ministère des Transports du Québec also reported that during that same period 574 fewer people were injured annually in winter road accidents.
“The review also revealed that studies of traffic safety results tested against actual enforcement of snow tires are rare, which makes it difficult to form a reasonable comparison to Edmonton,” the report said.
“Quebec’s experience as a single sample, which was conducted nine years ago under different vehicle technology conditions, could not be used to draw a conclusive estimate on traffic safety effects for Edmonton streets.”
The report points to a 2017 study of motor vehicle collisions in Edmonton and area that showed 50 per cent of collisions occurred in the five months between November and March.
There are approximately 3.6 million vehicles registered in Alberta, including close to 944,000 registered in the Edmonton region, the report says.
Fifty seven per cent of Alberta drivers already voluntarily use winter tires on their vehicles, which increased from 55 per cent in 2016 and 45 per cent in 2014.
A consumer winter tire study published last year found that in 1998 only 35 per cent of Canadian drivers used winter tires but that figure was almost double (66 per cent) in 2017.
In an emailed statement, the department of transportation said Alberta’s Traffic Safety Act currently does not require drivers to install winter tires on vehicles during the winter months and that vehicle owners are responsible for ensuring tires are appropriate for the environmental and driving conditions.
“At this time, there does not seem to be significant interest or demand to mandate Alberta’s drivers be required to install winter tires on their vehicles during the winter months,” the statement said.
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