Winter Driving Safety Info

A few examples as to why you may want to consider purchasing snow tires. They really do make a difference in your ability to stop, accelerate and steer.



Snow tire performance vs. Summer / all season tires
Edmunds.com 10/2009
Snow Test Results
No one expects the snow tires to come in anywhere but 1st place on this wintry surface at AET. The point here is to see how big their advantage really is over all-season and summer tires.
It takes 11.7 seconds for our Civic Si to accelerate to 40 mph on snow tires, and 14.5 seconds to get there on all-season rubber ? nearly 3 seconds and 24 percent slower. As for the summer tires, well, they require, ahem, 41.7 seconds as they struggle to 40 mph. That's no typo; it takes a half-minute longer ? 257 percent more time ? for the summer tires to reach this modest speed.
What about our traditional 0-60-mph test? Well, snow tires get to 60 mph in 19.1 seconds, while the all-season treads arrive in 22.9 seconds, nearly 4 seconds later. Forget the summer tires, however. The available 3,650 feet of snow ? seven-tenths of a mile ? isn't enough. We figure 67 seconds and 3,100 feet are needed to get there, and then there's the small matter of needing to stop again.
And that brings us to our next test: full stops with ABS engaged. Here again the snow tires dominate, stopping from 40 mph in 156 feet, some 28 feet shorter than the all-season tires' 184-foot performance. Meanwhile, our summer tires skate to an ultimate distance of 351 feet, the ABS actuator rattling for all it's worth the whole way.
Increase the starting speed to 60 mph and these distances more than double. It takes 362 feet for the snow tires to stop and 421 feet for the all-season donuts. The summer tires sit this one out because they can't manage to get themselves to 60 mph in the first place. (We do the math instead and come up with an estimate north of 800 feet.)
Skid pad results follow the same now-predictable pattern. Our snow tires pull 0.30 lateral g, the all-seasons manage 0.28g and the summer tires produce a pitiful 0.15g despite a heroic effort by our shivering hot shoe.

Canada state patrol 11/2009
On a snowy road, a vehicle wearing winter tires has a 38 per cent less chance of being involved in a collision than a vehicle wearing all-season tires. The fact that the winter tire's stopping distance is 38 per cent shorter than an all-season tire under the same conditions probably has a lot to do with it.

Tire wholesaler private testing
We drove the two Cayennes side-by-side at a speed of 30 mph, gave both drivers a braking signal at the prescribed mark and compared the distances it took them to come to a complete stop. The winter tire-equipped Cayenne stopped in an average distance of about 61 feet, while the all-season tire-equipped Cayenne took 102 feet (an additional 41 feet or about two and one-half car lengths). A 41-foot difference in stopping distance during a panic stop at 30 mph on a snow-packed road is more than enough to determine whether it's a near miss or an accident!
40 foot difference at only 30 MPH !!! Just think of the difference at 60mph!