Quebec makes winter tires mandatory
RHÉAL SÉGUIN
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
December 20, 2007 at 3:22 AM EST
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 Wednesday. “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.
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.