Winter tires are worth every penny when it comes to safety on the roads.
That is the message Road Safety at Work was trying to get out at a tire demonstration on Wednesday, Dec. 3, at the Justice Institute of BC, (JIBC), track on the Pitt Meadows Regional Airport grounds.
For the demonstration the agency pitted all-season mud and slush tires with good treads against dedicated brand new winter tires.
There were four different exercises JIBC driving instructor Dan Guilfoyle put the tires through driving a Dodge minivan.
Starting with the all season tires along a coned track set up on the grounds, he accelerated until he reached 50 km/h and then suddenly braked. He repeated the same exercise again only at 65 km/hr to illustrate how much time it took the vehicle to stop.
Then, with the same tires, at 50 km/h he had to quickly manoeuvre the vehicle to the left around the track and then at 60 km/h he had to manoeuvre to the right.
This exercise illustrated a scenario where a driver felt they could not stop in time and had to drive around an still object or another stopped vehicle on the road.
Guilfoyle explained the performance of a tire changes at 7 C, and when the temperature drops below 7C, all-season tires tend to lose their elasticity.
“Which causes it to then lose some of its traction,” explained Guilfoyle.
At the airport the temperature was 5C and the track was wet.
When Guilfoyle repeated the exercises using the winter tires, it was clear the winter tires demonstrated better handling when maneuvering the track.
He advised that if a person is forced to veer around a vehicle, rather than breaking, to look where you are going, and look for the open space.
Don’t look into the ditch, he said, because that is where you will end up. And, he added, don’t jerk the wheel, keep the steering smooth.
In the breaking exercise, the vehicle braked about a full car length ahead of where the all season tires stopped.
“That car length, that’s going to be the difference between perhaps hitting the person ahead of you, that car, or being able to come to a safe stop before,” said Guilfoyle.
According to Road Safety At Work almost 20 per cent of all work-related crashes between November and February across the province result in injury and time off work.
And, the highest-risk occupations are: transport and truck drivers; delivery and courier service drivers; nurse aides, orderlies, and patient service workers; bus drivers, subway operators, and other transit operators; and social and community service workers.
The agency noted that employers and supervisors with employees who report directly to them are required to keep their employees save when they drive for work. They should know their legal responsibilities, and address winter driving in their road safety plans.
To learn more go to: https://roadsafetyatwork.ca/winter-driving-safety/for-employers-and-supervisors-2/.