posted by canadiancatgreen
There’s chains on its tires!
Cohort Pic(k) Of The Day: Only In Canada…
– Posted on April 5, 2023
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Curbside Classics Archives
posted by canadiancatgreen
There’s chains on its tires!
But wait, Canadians and New Englanders always laugh at the chain regulations in western states. We‘re from snow country, we don’t need no stinking chains! I guess with solid slick tires they do.
And once that box is dropped there is very likely little weight on those drive (and brake) wheels.
I have lived my whole life in southern Ontario and have never seen chains on a car used on the road. On a trip to California I was surprised to see the signs saying that chains were obligatory at certain times.
Mike :
The sad fact is that very few Californian drivers know how to safely drive on anything but dray pavement .
Whenever it rains here the natives all SPEED UP to get out of it sooner .
I slow down and stay to the right, the pile ups a incredible .
-Nate
! I was taught to always drive a view obscuring load, in reverse .
-Nate
Yup, except when going on a slope in which case the load should be up hill even if it means you can’t see where you are going.
Studded tires are not legal in Southern Ontario. They are legal for passenger cars registered in Northern Ontario, between September 1st and May 31st. Studded tires are also permitted in the province of Quebec, from October 15th to May 1st. The City of Ottawa, located in southeastern Ontario, is a major employer of residents of Western Quebec. Heavy traffic from Quebec, into Ottawa every day. When walking in Ottawa in winter, you can regularly hear the sound of studded tires driving by. I’m not aware of any transfers from Quebec, towards repairing the damage to Ottawa roads. At the same time, Ottawa is one of Canada’s wealthiest cities. And the tax base allows the city to have some of the best roads in the country.
I was an expat living in Ottawa 2003-2021. Retired and now in Richmond, VA. Loved everything about living in Canada except the long winter. Ottawa, very good at plowing & salting primary streets. When I moved to Ottawa from the States had a two-door Chrysler Sebring LXI, with all season tires & front wheel drive. Not a winter problem, perhaps because @ 3-inches of snow I stayed home and and was never questioned because I was from Texas. 2010, bought a 2011 Camaro with all season tires. Rear wheel drive and the factory all season tires sucked. I would joke I could drive a better straight line if I was in reverse.
Never understood during winter why road crews were out & about filling pot holes with gravel and perhaps something sticky. Two days later all the filling gravel would wash out of a pothole and the process would start again.
Filling potholes during winter, and before proper road and pot hole repair can be made in spring, is necessitated by all the tire, wheel, and suspension damage reported to the city. As drivers make many thousands of dollar repair cost claims to the city every winter. According to the City of Ottawa, they fill 222,000 potholes per year.
Winters here are much milder than they used to be. The Rideau Canal skateway is a major tourist attraction, and for the first time in its history, never opened this winter. Due to temperatures not consistently cold enough, for maintaining a safe ice surface. We had a serious freezing rain storm here a couple days ago, as ice storms have replaced blizzards, as a more common serious weather event threat during winter. Well over a million people lost power in Eastern Ontario and Quebec during Wednesday’s ice storm.
When I got my first car in 1968 (Austin 1800) I bought 4 inexpensive studded snow tires for it from Canadian Tire. At the time I was living in Waterloo, which is just the right distance from Lake Huron to get buried in lake-effect snow. The car was remarkably good on snow covered or icy roads, but treacherous on dry roads. There was no traction, just the studs clicking on the pavement. The next year studs were outlawed, so I spent a day pulling them out with pliers. I did not notice any difference on snow, but they were not as good on icy roads. Given that even in a snowy area, in urban areas the roads are rarely snow covered I preferred the non-studded version. I hope modern studded tires perform better on dry roads.
I wonder where that was taken. It looks very Canadian Prairies. There’s a Lakeview Place in Regina, but this doesn’t look like it.