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ODOT Says Use Of Studded Tires Has Dropped Dramatically

The Oregon Department of Transportation says tires with metal studs cause millions of dollars in damage to highways each year.
Kantor.JH
/
Wikimedia
The Oregon Department of Transportation says tires with metal studs cause millions of dollars in damage to highways each year.

A perennial bill in the Oregon legislature is banning studded tires. Or taxing them because they chew up the roads.

The Oregon Department of Transportation says tires with metal studs cause millions of dollars in damage to highways each year.
Credit Kantor.JH / Wikimedia
/
Wikimedia
The Oregon Department of Transportation says tires with metal studs cause millions of dollars in damage to highways each year.

People who live in hilly parts of the Northwest say tire studs help them grip the road on icy days. The Oregon Department of Transportation says those metal studs cause millions of dollars in damage to highways each year.

But a new ODOT report found that the portion of drivers using studded tires has dropped 75 percent since its last study nearly 20 years ago. It's now down to just four percent of vehicles on the road.

Still, it doesn't take long to hear the tell-tale sounds of studded tires on the street in front of the state capitol building -- even on a day when temperatures are in the low 50s.

Even with the lower usage rate, ODOT still says studded tires will cause more than $40 million in damage to state highways over the next ten years.

Efforts to ban or tax studded tires have failed repeatedly in the Oregon Legislature. A citizen's initiative to ban most studded tire usage in Oregon failed to gather enough signatures to make the ballot.

Copyright 2014 Northwest News Network

Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.