Oh Canada! No to Speed Ads and Lower BAC, Yes to Snow Tires

by Samir Syed

Published: December 19th, 2007

oh canada no to speed ads and lower bac yes to snow tires

940News reports that Quebec's transport minister Julie Boulet has tabled a motion in the legislative assembly prohibiting car ads that "promote speed." The motion would give the SAAQ (Quebec's equivalent of a DMV) the power to set guidelines on what kinds of come-ons can be included in car ads aired and printed in Quebec. No mention of any study correlating advertisements to speeding, but I'm sure the Minister has one. Right? Right? Thankfully, scantily clad women washing a car using extra-bubbly car soap remains an option. In other news, QC's transport committee has turfed the lowering of the legal BAL (previously reported on TTAC) from 0.08 to 0.05– but has taken up the cause of mandatory snow tires in the province. Under the new proposal, Quebec's motorists can only use their "all season" rubber from April 16 to November 16. With over one metre of snow having fallen over Northeastern North America in the last month, perhaps this idea has gained some- wait for it- traction.

Samir Syed

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4 of 23 comments

Rpn453 on Dec 19, 2007
Gardiner Westbound : December 19th, 2007 at 1:58 pm Southern Ontario winter roads are snow-free most of the time. Snow tires have considerably reduced wet and bare pavement stability. In most instances one is at greater risk with snow tires than with high quality all-season tires. Where exactly did you get that information? The soft winter compound tends to wear quickly, but they provide good traction on wet and dry pavement despite the slightly mushier feel; soft rubber tends to do that. Car and Driver recently compared summer, winter, and all-season Goodyear tires in snowy, wet, and dry conditions: "The most interesting result was that the snow tire performed better on wet asphalt than did the all-season tire. The snow tire stopped sooner — 150 feet versus 155 — and pulled more g — 0.71 versus 0.69. And its 56.60-second run through the wet autocross course was 0.11 second quicker." The all-season did beat the winter tire on the track when dry, but not by enough to say that driver safety would be jeopardized in any way by using them in summer. Plus, they were up against the V-rated Goodyear RS-A which pulled .87g on the dry skidpad test of my Mazda3. Since performance was so close to that of the RS-As on both dry and wet pavement, they likely performed far better than cheap all-season tires that are good for 0.7g on dry pavement. The winter tire did get chewed up pretty good at the track though. I, and pretty much all my friends and family, use winter tires here in Saskatchewan, but I don't think they should make them mandatory. A person driving cautiously on all-season tires is safer than someone driving at the limits of their winter tires, and some all-seasons actually provide decent winter traction. This law would even prevent someone from being able to take their sports car out for a drive on a warm, dry, sunny day in early April. jazbo123 : December 19th, 2007 at 12:36 pm Do they exempt AWD cars from this? I run snows on my front drivers, but my AWD car def does not need snows. Of course it doesn't! Well, unless you wanted to be able to stop and turn as well as a car with snow tires.

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Lariviere17 on Dec 19, 2007

Making winter tires mandatory is a good idea. But if I want to go south (e.g. Florida) this winter from Montreal, I have the choice of breaking the law or ruins my winter tires. Not very practical, isn't it?

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Samir Syed on Dec 19, 2007

The River 17: You can buy nokian hakkapeliitta tires. They are rated by Transport Canada as a winter tire, but can be used year-round.

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Wstansfi on Dec 20, 2007

My favorite part of Quebec automotive law is the no fault insurance. That is, if you do slide your car into someone else's, you're not liable for dammage to their property, only your own. So, it almost makes sense that they then feel they need to legislate snow tires...

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