Huckleberries Online

Washington Bill Would Ban Studs

Posted by DFO

Feb. 24, 2009 9:10 a.m. • 15 comments

Item: Lawmaker seeks studded-tire ban/Richard Roesler, SR

Peter Geissinger, a mechanic with Perfection Tire and Auto Repair at 604 E 2nd Ave., prepares to bag up a customer’s snow tires.
(Full-size photo)

To state Sen. Chris Marr, it’s a simple cost-benefit analysis. The cost: an estimated $18.2 million a year in state road damage from metal tire studs hammering away at pavement. The benefit: better traction only during a relatively rare driving condition: a roadway slick with sheet ice. Washington drivers, according to the state Department of Transportation, encounter those conditions only about 1 percent of the time. With Washington facing a $500 million transportation budget shortfall, Marr, D-Spokane, thinks it’s time to ban studs.

Question: Would you support bills to outlaw studded snow tires in Washington and Idaho? Or would you prefer that those who ran studs paid an extra fee to pay for road repair. Or would you prefer that legislators leave things alone?

15 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Aliasjax on February 24 at 9:08 a.m.
Ban studs, learn to drive.
Joker on February 24 at 9:25 a.m.
I don’t use studs, but some people feel safer with them. I say leave things alone.
Cabbage Boy on February 24 at 9:29 a.m.
Leave it alone. Make the contractors actually use real pavement when paving the roads. Look at the stud wear test sites on I-90. There is a difference.

And on another note, studies, like stats support the thesis of those footing the bill. Yeah studs provide “better” traction only 1% of the time versus snow tires. But that only shows part of the picture. Does everyone buy NEW snow tires EVERY year? not hardly. So until they do a study of studs versus snow tires that are 3-5 years old, I say studs should still be an option.

/disclaimer, I don’t use studs. I have a front wheel drive car and a suburban that have all seasons on it. Chains if the roads get real bad.
Cindy_H on February 24 at 9:31 a.m.
If studs are banned a lot of Washington firefighters are going to be out of work.
I’m moving to Idaho. They still have studs there, don’t they?

*I’m sorry. I just couldn’t help it.*
toadman on February 24 at 9:35 a.m.
Let people use them, but tax them.
hollykb on February 24 at 11:34 a.m.
I drive a small, two-wheel-drive car and feel a lot safer with studded tires. Especially in Moscow, where they don’t totally plow everything when it snows. I tried a week without them and got too nervous.
LukeB on February 24 at 12:35 p.m.
toadman doesn’t have a bad idea, but I doubt any tax would make up for the extra road wear cost.

I’m all for banning them.
wheels on February 25 at 8:16 a.m.
Cabbage Boy makes a great point.Unfortunately he will now be the target of the IDOT for exposing their job securiity platform via the inferior road building program.Planned obsolescence at its best.We could also try the obvious.BAN STUDS.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.