As winter ends, the controversy over Bend road conditions continues. It takes only a few drives on city streets to realize the damage caused by studded tires: road ruts, broken pavement in road ruts, rough noisy pavement and an increase in tire wear caused by broken and rough pavement.

Ruts, created by the excessive stud wear on asphalt, can cause hydroplaning during wet weather. The ruts create parallel channels of water, often inches deep, that act like ice, reducing traction and causing loss of control. Because this danger is more common than road icing, it is a greater contributor to reduced safety.

Water collecting in ruts also contributes to the development of pavement failure in the form of potholes. The reduced thickness of the asphalt in ruts causes the pavement to crack under loads. The cracks allow water to undermine the pavement, causing it to break in chunks as it is driven over. Pothole damage to automobiles is significant (AAA says that figure equals $6.4 billion adjusted for inflation as calculated by Richard Retting, general manager and director of safety research at Sam Schwartz Engineering in Washington, D.C.).

Then there is noise pollution. No one can argue that the driving-on-gravel sound of studded tires on bare pavement is a noise nuisance.

What are the effects of studs on tire traction on dry pavement? When the pavement is exposed and dry, studded tires provide the lowest traction of any tire. Since this condition represents the majority of winter driving in Central Oregon, one can conclude that safety overall is reduced in the winter when studded tires are applied.

So why is Oregon still using studded tires? Ignorance. An engineering review conducted by the Washington State Transportation Center incorporated data from studies in Washington, Alaska and Norway (Research Project Agreement T2695, Task 21, Studded Tire). The study concluded that winter tires performed as well as studded tires on ice and snow under a variety of driving conditions. Furthermore, when other safety concerns (such as hydroplaning caused by water-filled studded tire ruts, road irregularity caused by broken pavement and reduced traction of studded tires on dry pavement) were taken into account, the superior safety benefits of winter tires were verified.

Modern snow tires cost about 50 percent more than studded tires. For many people who drive less than 5000 miles a year, snow tires can be used as an all-season tire. Our household trades between snow and all-weather tires at six-month intervals (this spreads the tire wear between sets thereby increasing the time between replacements of both tire types). In general, our experience with snow tires has been very favorable. We have used snow tires in Central Oregon for the past five years and for three years before that in Truckee, California, which has an average annual snowfall of over 140 inches. We also have all-wheel drive and front-wheel drive vehicles.

We have never had a traction issue with snow or ice using dedicated snow tires.

As an informed public, we have options.

We can choose to do nothing and continue to pay for the spiraling cost of road repairs forever, or we can heed science, change our requirements and be safer and more fiscally responsible.

— William Hand lives in Bend.