Winter tyres. Should they be made mandatory?

[normal rules]

Having lived in Germany for 5 years and spent probably 6 months of my life in Norway in the winter I’m thinking this should really be a focus in the uk.
Winter tyres are mandatory in some European countries for winter.
Why not the uk?  And I’m not talking about studded ones, I’m talking about simple winter tyres.
They are safer, therefore would reduce accidents. And maybe even save lives.
It’s laughable watching cars slip and slide on a few mm of snow when they are still shod in summer tyres. And they are not just good for snow and ice, but rain too.
There is a cost implication of course, but if car users had a spare set of tyres tucked away for winter, in the long run, there would be no long term cost as the tyres would only get used half a year. In Germany the locals used to buy a set of cheap steel rims just for winter tyres thereby protecting alloys from salt ingress and corrosion too.

We live in a country where there are many stipulations regarding insurance, for cars, houses, caravans, life even, yet we can drive our cars around in treacherous conditions with utterly inappropriate tyres. It makes no sense at all.

[ravenrover]

Is it really practical for the amount of snow we usually get?

[Filo]

More focus should be put on people learning how to drive in winter, and those that are scared of the conditiins should stay off the road

[Sprotyrover]

It would be a nightmare to enforce and do we really have the severe weather?

[Muttley]

Across the UK as a whole, our weather is not severe enough to warrant the additional investment required in the initial purchase cost and provision of storage facilities (all the Germans that I used to work with stored their tyres at the local KwikFit type place and got them to fit them each November).

As Filo says, there should be better training of how to drive in poor weather - keep off the brakes and accelerator and change up as soon as possible. And don't buy a RWD BMW!

[Colin C No.3]

Tried them on the kid’s sledges, not the same ‘feeling’ I experienced as a kid. “LOOK OUT MISSUS, ROGUE SLEDGE, NO STEERING, NO BRAKES, NO….” Too late. “Can I ‘elp you up wi’ your shopping Mrs Robinson? That’s reight. Up you get, ‘ere’s your bags & your walking stick. C’mon, we’ll ‘elp you home. No need to tell our mam eh?”.

[Donnywolf]

... and I would like to add a Florida law in too

Namely " Wipers ON Lights ON ". I know it wouldn't be perfect but it would be a start

[Axholme Lion]

In this country you would probably be better with all season tyres. That way you would only need one set and no need to store a spare set. They're a halfway house between the winter and summers. Perfectly adequate for UK conditions. The stupid wide low profile tyres on many modern cars don't help either.

[selby]

  The AA reports they are brought out to change wheels more than any other break down without having to change four.  It seems it's a dying art with motorists.

[drfchound]

Run flats solve that issue mate.

[danumdon]

  The AA reports they are brought out to change wheels more than any other break down without having to change four.  It seems it's a dying art with motorists.

It doesn't help that most company car drivers are now not allowed to change their own flat tyres or even have a spare one to change. Stupid insurance rules strike again. i would make it part of your driving test to be able to change a flat tyre for the spare, if you cant do it then you don't get a licence. Same with the winter driving, if you don't know how to maneuver out of a slide then your banned!

[silent majority]

This was a subject we discussed at length with my previous employer. Being a global business we had some countries adopting the practice and some, by definition, didn't.

It was considered to be a duty of the company to provide the employee with safe working conditions, and winter tyres fell into that category. My boss, had winter tyres on his car in Denmark but not in the UK, although he did then start to pay for it himself whilst driving in the UK. He felt it should be compulsory but the company thought otherwise because of the mild UK winters.

The cross over seems to be about 7 deg C, below that the tyre performance starts to drop off, and can be substantial.

On this occasion I'm going to go with AL on this, an intermediate, or all seasons, tyre should cover all bases. Ive had these on my last two cars and they work very well.