Growing up in B.C. (Kootenays) - you'd be a complete moron not to have winter tires; naturally, every car in our family had them in good shape on their own wheels.
I was surprised to listen to the news and find how many accidents would occur in places like Calgary because so many people use all-seasons. I regularly travel to Calgary all year long, so I have seen my fair share of accidents after the fact. In B.C., we would need winter tires mostly due to accumulation; however, in Calgary slush, ice and slick, compact snow would tend to be the major problems.
Now, here is Saskatchewan, I've been through two winters. The grand majority of drivers here use all-season tires. The roads in the city are garbage in the winter, and the drivers are already terrible enough. The first season we had different cars with winter tires. Now we drive a new car and I didn't buy the tires for it last winter. We got by just fine; however, there were incidents when I was shaking my head, knowing that if I had winter tires, I'd have less stress with all the emergency maneuvors I had to deal with due to other crappy drivers around me. I'll be buying the winter tires this year.
Should there be a law? I say no. What would certainly help is if they didn't called them all-season tires. This gives so many people a misconception on just how lousy they perform in winter conditions.
