Remember studded tires?

There is reason to believe that road salt use could be radically reduced if studded tires were legal again. Few people know, and probably fewer legislators remember, how the ban on studs came about. Studs became popular very fast because they had a dramatic effect on car stability in icing conditions. As stud usage headed for the million-car mark, somebody got worried and began the move to get them banned.

I was able to get a copy of a very high-end glossy pamphlet furnished to the legislators by the Salt Institute. It presented information on a study sponsored by the Salt Institute with participation by several state highway departments. Why would the Salt Institute (members included Morton, Cargill, etc) weigh in on whether tire studs should be banned? Obviously these companies wouldn't have bothered unless they expected that tire studs would reduce use of road salt.

The anti-stud pamphlet highlighted pictures of roads allegedly damaged by studs, and described a "study" of stud damage on sample road surfaces, carried out in the tire test facility of the then Standard Oil of Indiana. A giant tire torture machine ran tires on the sample surfaces, with studs and without. The omission was that no sample was run without salt. But the campaign succeeded and the legislature banned studs.

At that time, everyone could see concrete spalling from the highway travel lanes, and the idea that studs did it had appeal. Studs went away, and salt use rose.

But within the next months and years, the same concrete spalling could be seen on the sidewalks of highway bridges, and in fact everwhere on concrete exposed to road salt. All these surfaces were well out of the reach of studs. But the impression remained that studs wrecked roads.

Will we see the issue raised again?