Winter Tire Challenge

All-season tires

↑W gas↓SSpace brake←→AD steerP pauseR restartM sound

0KM/H

MAXIMUM50

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Alberta · Winter tire challenge

Drive it yourself.

Fourteen Alberta winter situations, from an Edmonton crosswalk to the Crowsnest Pass, by day or night, in snow or freezing rain. Drive each one on the tires you have now, then on winter tires, and feel the difference. Then decide.

How to drive

↑WGas (speed up) ↓SSpaceBrake ←→ADSteer left and right. Tap, don't hold. PEscPause RRestart the run MSound on or off (off to start)

On a phone or tablet: ◀ ▶ bottom left to steer, BRAKE and GAS bottom right. Turn your phone sideways. With no pedal pressed, the car holds its speed. The grip meter shows how hard you're working the tires; at 100% they slide.

The physics is a model calibrated to published tire tests and crash research. Places are inspired by real roads, not exact copies. Sources are in Learn.

Learn

What to put on this winter

Best: winter tires, all four. Ideally ice-focused (“Nordic”). Best on ice, snow and cold pavement. Take them off in spring.

Minimum: all-weather tires. Snowflake symbol, stay on all year. Close to winter tires on packed snow, but on ice they brake about 30% longer on average, up to 50%.

Not for winter: all-season and summer. In Tire Rack's 2026 test, an M+S all-season needed 51% more distance than the best winter tire to stop on packed snow.

How to tell if a tire is a winter tire

Look on the sidewall for the three-peak mountain snowflake. It means the tire beat a reference tire by at least 10% in an acceleration test on packed snow. The test doesn't cover ice, braking or cornering.

“M+S” alone describes a tread shape. There's no performance test behind it, and most all-season tires carry it.

Winter vs all-weather: both carry the snowflake. Winter tires are softer, with more sipes, and come off in spring. All-weathers stay on all year.

Quarter test: push a quarter into the tread, caribou nose first. If you can see the tip of the nose, the tread is too low for winter. ADAC measured snow braking dropping to 86% of new at 4 mm of tread.

Where it's the law

Alberta: there's no province-wide winter tire law. Studs and chains aren't banned in any season, but you're liable for road damage.

But in Banff and Jasper national parks, it is the law: on the Icefields Parkway (Highway 93 North), Parks Canada requires winter-rated tires (M+S or the snowflake symbol) or chains from November 1 to late March. M+S all-seasons count as legal there, but the M+S marking has no snow or ice test behind it. Legal isn't the same as safe.

Elsewhere in Canada: Québec requires winter tires with the snowflake symbol from December 1 to March 15, and BC requires winter-rated tires on many highways from October 1.

Rules change. Check the official provincial or Parks Canada page before a trip.

The research, newest first

Fair points

Crash statistics show smaller gains than braking tests. Québec's law came with about 5% fewer victims after accounting for trends, and about 3% fewer deaths and serious injuries. Manitoba's insurer found 6.3% fewer claims. Most winter days aren't icy, so averages dilute the big gap on the bad days.

On a snow circle, the gap in sideways grip is small: in a 2024 test, the best winter and best all-season tires were within about 2.4%. Braking on snow and anything on ice show the big gaps.

On cold, dry pavement, winter tires don't win. Several tests found winter tires stop a little longer on dry roads than all-season or summer tires. The game treats winter, all-weather and all-season tires as equal on cold, dry pavement.

Winter tires are bad in summer. Swedish fatal-crash data from 2012–2021 found cars still on winter tires in summer were overrepresented.

Studs beat studless tires on ice: Swedish data showed 42% fewer fatal crashes on ice and snow, for cars without stability control. A Finnish study found 10–15% fewer, but not statistically significant overall.

Common myths

The real cost over five winters

Typical 2025 prices: about $700–$1,000 for a car on steel rims, and $1,100–$1,600 or more for an SUV or truck (approximate, from retail listings). Winter tires typically last 4–6 seasons; Michelin Canada says 5–6 seasons or 50,000–60,000 km. Assumes two $60 swaps a year and 70,000 km of tread life on your other tires. Alberta insurers don't have to offer a discount; ask yours. Manitoba Public Insurance offers low-interest winter tire loans.

New to Canada?

When to switch: put winter tires on in October, when daytime highs drop to about 7 °C. That's a rule of thumb, not a hard line. Take them off in April or May. Don't wait for the first snowfall, when shops are busiest.

Rims and storage: a second set of steel rims makes swaps cheaper. Store the off-season set somewhere cool and dry, or pay a shop to store it.

Tight budget: buy in spring or summer sales and look for used rims. If you can only afford one set, all-weather tires with the snowflake symbol beat all-seasons by a wide margin on snow.

Insurance: ask about a winter tire discount.

Edmonton by the numbers

Residential streets stay snow-packed. Under City policy C409K, residential roads and lanes are bladed to a 5 cm snowpack, not bare pavement. Arterials aim for bare pavement.

Default speed is 40 km/h on residential and downtown streets since August 2021.

Bridges ice first. A bridge deck loses heat from above and below. One field study found decks below freezing about 49% more hours than the road next to them (Abaza & Ciesielski 2006).

Dec, Nov, Jan were the three worst collision months in the City's 2017 collision report (Edmonton Journal, 2018). 275 collisions were reported on November 1, 2017, the first snowfall of that winter.

Winter tire use: 56% of Albertans in 2022 (Leger). In 2025, 70% of Prairie drivers and 80% of Canadian drivers (Probe Research). Both surveys were industry-funded.

How the game works

Grip: each tire has a grip level (μ) on each surface. The table shows μ at −10 °C, mostly converted from published braking distances (μ = v² ÷ 2gd). Packed snow and ice come from Tire Rack's 2026 tests; the others are estimates that keep the tested ratios.

Temperature: ice is slipperiest near 0 °C, when meltwater forms (×0.65 at 0 °C, ×1.1 at −20 °C). Snow grips better as it gets colder (×0.8 at 0 °C). From Tada et al. 2023 and Gießler et al. 2010.

Friction circle: braking, steering and speeding up share one grip budget. ABS keeps the wheels rolling so you can still steer. On ice, grip lets go suddenly once you slide (×0.85), as tire tests show. On loose gravel, ABS stops about 27% longer (NHTSA), so the game gives ABS 80% of grip there.

Curves and drag: curves are banked about 6%, which adds a little sideways grip. Air and rolling drag (about 0.05 m/s² plus a speed term) help you slow down, which matters at highway speed. Steering at speed is capped near 0.45 g, about what drivers use in a hard turn.

Hills: braking deceleration is g × (μ cos θ + sin θ), the exact form of the standard AASHTO stopping formula. θ is negative going downhill.

Drive type: pulling power is limited to μ × the weight on the driven wheels: about 60% for FWD, 45% for RWD (40% for empty pickups), 100% for AWD and 4x4. Braking and steady cornering use all four tires on every car, as UMTRI's 2016 review and Consumer Reports found.

Weight: heavier vehicles get slightly lower μ (×0.92–0.98), from tire load sensitivity.

Hazards appear where a driver on winter tires reacting in 1.0 s stops 2.5 m short. The physics check uses 1.5 s, the typical reaction to a surprise (Green 2000).

Sources

An independent educational project. Not sponsored or endorsed by any government, tire company, retailer or insurer. Organizations named in Sources published the research; they had no role in this game. A physics model, not a guarantee of how any tire, car or road will behave. Places are inspired by real roads. Drive for the conditions.

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