Ontario Is Making Roads Safer One Winter Tire At A Time

Co-authored by Cassandra Khatchikian, Student-At-Law

The Government of Ontario is striving to make the roads in this province a safer place. In one of its latest endeavors, Ontario has implemented a new regulation in an effort to promote safer driving during those slushy and icy winter months.

The new regulation pertains to offering Ontario drivers an incentive to get winter tires on their vehicles. Under s. 14.1 (3)(1) of RRO 1990, Reg 664, Automobile Insurance, which is a regulation under the Insurance Act, companies offering auto-insurance policies are now obliged to offer a discount to drivers who buy and install winter tires on their vehicles. This regulation came into effect on January 1, 2016.

Prior to January 1, 2016, less than half of the auto-insurance companies in Ontario had already offered a discount for customers who had winter tires on their vehicles. Now, this discount is mandatory thanks to the newly implemented regulation.

In order for the regulation to apply, each vehicle must have four winter tires. Proof of winter tires is normally not necessary in order to obtain the discount. However, in the event of a collision, the insurer may then take measures to confirm that winter tires were in fact installed on the vehicle.

For some companies, this discount did not apply automatically after January 1, 2016, to pre-existing customers. Therefore, in order to receive the discount, a customer had to either renew their insurance policy or commence a new policy after January 1, 2016.

Though the regulation does not specify what the discount for sporting winter tires ought to be, the average going rate is a 5% reduction off of the collision portion of the auto-insurance policy.

Unfortunately, winter tires are not mandatory in Ontario, and to date the Ontario courts have held that failing to have same on a vehicle does not, as of yet, amount to contributory negligence.

However, there is case law from British Columbia which indicates that failure to have winter tires installed on a vehicle can be a consideration in a finding of liability in the event of a motor vehicle accident.

In Hutton v Breitkreutz1, the defendant's vehicle slid across the centerline of a highway into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with the plaintiff's vehicle. The defendant argued that she was not liable for the accident. She claimed that her vehicle hit a patch of black ice, which caused her to lose control of the vehicle and the accident was therefore...