I hate giving/writing speeches.

This is just my outline, any info you think should be added (that can fit under the headings; cost, type or traction). Anything that needs to be taken out? BTW, This is an informative, not persuasive speech given to mostly normal aged college students IE. under 22. I still need to expand on a few points, any input would be greatly appreciated.

As usual, I procrastinated and would like to have this buttoned up by sunday night, not a lot of free time during the week before thursday when its due.

Intro;

According to Paul Pillisch in an article from the Toronto Star “A set of winter tires may be less than the deductible on your insurance policy after an accident.”

Intro Pic http://discounttirecenters.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/allseasontires-300x300.jpg

How many of you have been involved in an accident? Whether it was during the winter months or not, you had to deal with being without a car, using a rental car or driving around in a damaged car. What if I told you for the price of most insurance deductibles, you could be better prepared to avoid costly and time consuming accidents. Before I had to start driving my own car in winter, I gave little thought about winter tires. Why spend $500 on my parents third vehicle when I had no incentive to care what happened to it, as long as it got me through the winter months. Today I will tell you about the different types of tires, the cost and the pros of winter tires.

Picture; wintertires

T Summer (3 Season), All Season (No season) and winter tires

Types of tires

• Summer/3 seasons

o Made to handle wet/dry roads

o Above 45 degrees

o Flat/smooth treads to disperse water, reduce road noise

• All Season/4 seasons

o Made to handle wet/dry/snow roads

o Medium tread depth to accommodate both water and snow conditions

o Meant to handle the compromise, not any type of weather specifically

Pic; wintersymbol

• Winter

o Consider this, Dec 15th was the last 45+ degree day this season

o Made to handle all road types in weather under 45 degrees

o Deep tread depth to get water/slush/snow out from under the tire   Cost

• You are buying 2 sets of tires, but your tires last twice as long. You only use them for roughly half the year

• Even half worn winter tires are better than brand new all season tires

• How much is your insurance deductible and the hassle of dealing with a rental/no car worth to you

Traction

• Winter tires have a different blend of rubber (and other material) than all season/summer that stay soft/flexible/grippe in weather under 45 degrees

Pic; Stopping Distance

• Stopping distance on snow covered roadways can halve the distance of A/S, quarter of summer tires

 13.5-16.5ft midsize car-SUV

o 5.5 car lengths @30 on snows

o 10 car lengths @30 on A/S

o 24.5 car lengths @30 on summers

In the survey, some of you were skeptical about placing more blame or enforcing tire standards on people involved in an accident, this would actually be quite easy to enforce. Quebec Canada requires, by law, that all vehicles from Dec 15-Mar 15 be outfitted with winter tires, or risk an on the spot fine of $100-200. The other half of you brought up cost as an issue, think of winter tires as your education. It costs you more upfront, but in the end, you get more of a benefit down the road. Say you buy a used car with new tires. Normally, tires last you 2-4 years (depending on mileage driven). If you had bought a pair of winter tires, you could potentially double the length of time between tire purchases.

Conclusion;

Winter tires give you better grip to aid in acceleration, braking and maneuverability, can double the life of both sets of tires and give you better performance in the warmer months, be that with summer tires or all seasons. If you won’t consider dedicated winter tires, I at least urge you to have new-er all seasons that you only use during the winter months.

I like it. And I live in an area with (normally) mild winters. I wouldn't let 'em off the hook with your last sentence, though. I think it will let too many listeners justify running all seasons all year regardless of condition, i.e. do nothing.

To me :

"You are buying 2 sets of tires, but your tires last twice as long. You only use them for roughly half the year"

is the real key. The only actual cost is either getting them swapped out twice a year, or buying the second set of wheels for the snows so that you can do it yourself.

I agree with 1988RedT2, that last sentence undermines the main point. By the time you're buying a set just for winter, there's no excuse for them to be all season tires, so you're really just encouraging them to do nothign.

If their are going to be questions, I wonder if you're going to get the 'then why don't I just run snow tires all year' question. It's a common one here.

While you cover what different tires are designed for, you only cover actual numbers for stopping distance in the winter. I wouldn't change the speech to cover winter tires in the summer, because it will dilute your focus, but if questions are allowed, I'd be prepared to answer it if it came up. If the format doesn't include questions, then never mind.

keethrax wrote: To me : "You are buying 2 sets of tires, but your tires last twice as long. You only use them for roughly half the year" is the real key. The only actual cost is either getting them swapped out twice a year, or buying the second set of wheels for the snows so that you can do it yourself. If their are going to be questions, I wonder if you're going to get the 'then why don't I just run snow tires all year' question. It's a common one here.

I would rather have people daily drive winters year round then all seasons. There is a test video by someone on youtube comparing all seasons to studless winters ON TRACK. They only lost 2.5 seconds per lap, and the tires were actually still ok.

My mom and dad have both dailied on winter tires before and no issues.

HiTempguy wrote: I would rather have people daily drive winters year round then all seasons. There is a test video by someone on youtube comparing all seasons to studless winters ON TRACK. They only lost 2.5 seconds per lap, and the tires were actually still ok. My mom and dad have both dailied on winter tires before and no issues.

So would I if those were the two choices. All I'm saying is that if you have numbers in one direction to expect questions about going in the other direction and being prepared to answer them (again assuming questions are part of the format).

Further, the main issue with running snows all year isn't that they're terrible in the summer. They're not great, but the safety penalty for using snows in the summer is negligible compared to the reverse. It's that they wear noticeablly faster in the summer due to the compounds + tread patterns used. Depending on how aggressive the particular snow tire is, you may also see a noticeable hit to fuel economy as well. You're not likely to cause many real problems, but you're also not likely to save money, which is presumably the biggest reason for running only one set in the first place.

Personally, based on where I live, if I was to run only one set it would be snows, but I wouldn't be doing it to save money. I'd do it (and in fact did it) because I had nowhere to store the extra wheels/tires when in a small rental.

In reply to 1kris06:

Maybe pose the question "how much is 'not getting stuck' worth to you?"

As a New Englander (RI) it's PONDEROUS to me how few people drive on winter tires. I don't get it.

In reply to gamby:

All you can do is present the information to folks and hope they'll do the smart thing.

My father usually drives a car of mine with snow tires on every year and marvels about how well it does in the snow, yet won't buy snows for their Taurus and slaps studded snows on his pickup truck...which he still manages to get stuck.

Even better are my enthusiast friends who will buy expensive max performance tires for better grip for their daily in the spring and summer, then toss all-seasons back on for the fall/winter and mock me for having snows.

I subscribe to the "less than a deductible" school of thought as well.