Are chains a legal requirement in France, are snow socks legal

A snowHead

mfj197, not difficult Laughing

A snowHead

You would be nuts do go up without them.

£20 (I know we'll debate whether £20 chains are any use, but anyway I've used them and for a once-off trip where they probably won't leave the boot they seem fine...) - or a written off car, or at best no way of getting up the hill.

Why would you not buy them?

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I was stopped just before Mont Louis driving up to Les Angles and had to pull over and get the chains on, so I'd assume the local gendarmerie will be on the case if it's been snowing. Up on the Cerdagne plateau it was thick snow, but the windy road down quickly got icy.

ps there is a bricolage or hypermarket in Prades on the way up that sells chains.

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Actually, I find that knowing when to stop and put chains on is still quite difficult - I think I tend to do so too early, at the first sign of loss of traction. But just took delivery of two lovely great clunking new Vredestein snow tyres today, as two of ours were getting a bit worn. So maybe with those on the driving wheels I'll be able to leave the chains a bit later. It just always seems easier to put them on where it's easy to do so, rather than risk getting stuck.

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pam w, totally agree with you there..... it can never be too early....... I would rather chain up before needed in place of my choice than realise too late that I should have chained up and then be forced to do so in an awkward location or even too late to bother.......

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Blue signs out on the road behind the house today and road difficult from 1250 meters, impassible without chains or at least snow tires from 1350 meters. I'm surprised they leave signs out all year in the Haute-Savoie, probably due to the inbreeding. In the Isere they are only put up during the winter months.

After all it is free

From the French "Code Routier" (Arrêté du 24 novembre 1967 relatif à la signalisation des routes et des autoroutes)....

The Snow Chains sign is classed as a "panneaux d'obligation ". The sign means "snow chains obligatory on at least two drive wheels".

Often, the signs will state that "snow tyres are acceptable" (instead of chains)

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We've had this discussion before but as many of the signs are left up all year round (whether because of the inbreeding or whatever) they cannot sensibly be interpreted as meaning what they are supposed to mean. So you still need to make that decision whether to put the chains on, or not. Whether or not you are allowed to proceed with snow tyres, but without chains, depends on the conditions and the amount of traffic - sometimes they insist on chains as well.

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Have crossed over the Col du Lauteret in snow on many occasions now, including 7 times in 3 days rolling eyes

last year, and on only one occasion have I seen the gendarmes asking people to put chains on or stop. They didn't ask me, but I was driving a 4x4.

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Hells Bells, it's completely unpredictable, but I've known it happen - fortunately my brother in law, in a hired car from the Swiss side of geneva airport, had chains and knew how to put them on (he'd never really encountered snow before, but as a farmer from southern Africa had sometimes used chains in muddy off-road conditions). The gendarmes were insistent. That was an ordinary car - maybe a 4 x 4 would have been fine.

Chains are not often needed - and gambling without them, or with a £20 pair quite likely to break and wrap themselves round something important, will usually be OK. Evil or Very Mad

One technique if you have been handed a minibus with no wintert tyres at Munich and spot the check by re polis at entrance to Zillertal is to hover until someone else has been stopped and then put the hammer down Smile

Works for us, so far Smile

You know it makes sense.

Chains are for losers who can't drive.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Sorry to re-surrect this thread, and probably a stupid question, but do I need chains on all 4 wheels of the car or just on the 2 drive wheels. Most of the places in UK sell them in pairs but I could have sworn I saw the vehicles in resort have all 4 wheels on chains. In this because its resort and as they are being used all the time it makes snese to have 4 or is the legal requirement in france to have 4 chains. Or 3 if you were suicidal enough to take a reliant robin into the alps Smile

Update or is it 2 chains are legal, but 4 is better/safer you pays your money and you makes your choice?

G

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@Whitegold, being a troll is for losers who don't have a life

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@gordonrussell76, only need them on driven wheels

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Thanks Boris that has made me and my wallet very happy Smile

G

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I can understand the problem for people who only go out to the Alps once a year or less. Whatever the legal/police issue, appreciate that there is a sliding scale of how far you can get using different technologies and the problem is that different combinations overlap. I have winter tyres, rear wheel drive, and carry chains and go to the Alps at least twice each winter (my kids have discovered that it's quite reasonable cost to take out temporary insurance on my car for their Alpine trip). People get focused on 'what's legal?' when really the question is 'what's best?' but the decision is very much a cost vs risk one that's sometimes hard to quantify. Here's a subjective summary:

The baseline ideal is an AWD car with winter wheels and tyres and chains for the worst conditions (not necessarily a blizzard - it may just be a short but icy road out of your chalet/apartment). Everything else is a compromise.

Summer tyres on their own will probably be fine as long as it doesn't snow. If it snows, you're stuffed. Given you're driving to somewhere specifically for the snow, it doesn't seem sensible to go with nothing else.

Summer tyres plus chains is OK if you transition quickly from tarmac to deepish snow. This will take you 70-80% of the way to the ideal combination. But if you hit mixed snow-tarmac-snow-tarmac and/or thin snow on tarmac then chains are a problem because you can't be constantly taking them off and on. And while you're on summer tyres when the locals are on winter tyres you may not realise that you're disadvantaged in terms of stopping distance even on dry tarmac, if it's cold.

Summer tyres plus snowsocks will take you about 60-70% of the way towards the 'ideal' combination. Snowsocks are like chains in being OK once you're on continuous snow, but not great on mixed snow-tarmac alternation.

Winter tyres will take you to about 80% of the ideal and with chains about 90%, perhaps a bit more.

AWD/4WD with summers probably only adds about 5% extra to the summer numbers.

AWD/4WD with winters probably takes you to 85%-95% and the chains cover the remainder to 100%.

So whatever you have, chains are a sensible addition. Most people with winter tyres still take chains (if you spend £800-£1200 on winter wheels and tyres it would be a false economy not to add chains for another £150). But if you do go for chains then appreciate that they don't cover all the bases and that in an ideal world, you'd be using winter tyres. In the past ten years I've only used chains three times, once to get out of a steep drive on the return day and twice to pick people up late evening from the train station in the valley. But when I needed them, I needed them. For broader readership, note that winter tyres are mandatory in Austria and effectively so in Germany (or the other way 'round).

The French/Swiss police habit of enforcing chain fitting at the bottom of a mountain road is sensible, and occurs regularly enough to be an issue. By doing this, even 'hough some vehicles (like mine) could get further, they ensure that everyone is likely to get to the top. A car with summer tyres will put chains on before I do, and they don't want to be blocked by me, further up the mountain, as I reach the point where my winter tyres need chains to progress, and I'm blocking the road while I put them on.

And I appreciate that the above numbers are debatable - they're just meant to convey the uncertainties around the different options and road conditions and the relative differences between the various options. And to forestall some obvious comments: I'm sure some people have managed many trips on summers alone. I did for about six-seven years and never needed chains although latterly I did hire them. The first year I got winter tyres we crossed the Jura Mountains in deep snow where even locals were ending up in the ditch, and because it was alternating snow and tarmac for at least ten kilometres in the foothills, cars with chains were turning back, because the tarmac sections were impossible with chains. So it's hard to extrapolate from individual experience. The year before last we hit the same conditions going home from Switzerland:

This is just the wrong combination for summers+chains: the route varied in height and in the lower sections the snow cover was thin enough to see the tarmac (above) and cars with chains had to take them off because of the vibration. After a few kilometres they also turned 'round, leaving only cars with winter tyres in the convoy. The only one of a mixed bag of old and new, FWD, RWD and 4x4, 1.1L to 5.0L not to make it was a BMW X5 that ended up in the ditch - he just clipped the snow at the edge at the wrong point where the road was off-camber and momentum dragged him into the ditch.

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Very informative

We are driving to Avoriaz for the first time as its our first half term trip thanks to school and we just could not bring ourselves to pay the exorbitant flight costs. We will be doing this every year for the next few years so to be honest the saving on the flights the first year will cover cost of chains and tyres with a bit left over for some beers and the following years will be gravy till the chains break/tyres wear out, we change cars etc.

I am fitting Winter tyres and taking snow chains to a front wheel drive car, so nice to know i am 90% of the way there, to be honest any conditions involving needing the 100% I would probably give it up and wait until the plough had been up the hill. The switch backs up to Avoriaz while not being on a par with that Romanian road on Top Gear are enough to give me the willy's in less than ideal conditions.

Currently looking at Thule CK-7 or Wessenfels clack and go m43's anyone got any experience with these. The clack and go's look quite easy, but I am suspicious of the mechanism failing.

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I've just bought Spikes Spyder EASY Alpine chains. They're pricey at around £280 but they are the sort that fit very quickly and can go on wheels that can't take chains (if there's not enough internal clearance behind the wheel). What swung it was that the chains will fit a much wider range of sizes than conventional ones (+/- 225mm around the circumference and all the main sizes of heel nut for the fittings). So the hope is they'll be more transferable to future cars and I can lend them to family so the extra cost will be averaged-out. These are the only front-fitting ones with a 2-bolt fitting to the wheels, which they say is more reliable than a 1-bolt type. They supply three different wheel nut sizes (I have 17mm) with the basic kit and you can order smaller/larger fittings if you have them. They went on as shown in the video, pretty easily. I just need some snow now to see how well the chains work, although I could try them out on soft ground if I was happy to get them dirty. See the video:

http://youtube.com/v/vuMTaZuIvMs

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Yeah I looked at some of those type, but there are pricey, I take on board the fact that they may have a life beyond our existing car, but I heard of a lot of my friends chains failing or breaking so my impression is that there are not a long term investment, more a disposable item. This of course could be due to misuse and poor fitting. However I am fairly sure that I will make some amatuer mistakes given this is my first set of chains, so I doubt that my experience will differ much.

After all it is free

I think that a lot of the problem with breaking chains is when people go for the cheaper 9mm ones that are often used by car hire companies. My son hired a car last year and the chains broke half way down the mountain. I think you have to pay upwards of £125 to get ones which are robust enough to be used for any length of time with a car full of people and luggage. I appreciate that it's hard to know if the extra above this price point is really worth it. But this is now my third set of chains, and I never succeeded in selling my previous two sets after I changed my car and found they wouldn't fit the new one. I believe that some chain retailers do exchange schemes so that may be worth exploring if people haven't bought them yet. I know that some people post that they wait until they need chains and then buy them en route if needed. But I really wouldn't want to be searching for chains en route or in the resort.

Just an obvious tip: have to hand - a mat to kneel on, spare grotty gloves, a torch and driving shoes to put back on. Having a mat to kneel on really can make it much easier and avoids you having to do the rest of the journey in sodden trousers.

@gordonrussell76, ...this from a lot of experience of driving from Uk to CH and back - at least 4 times a year; through the Jura to cross into CH at Jougne.

Winter tyres are not a formal legal requirement in CH-Switzerland. HOWEVER - if you are in any kind of accident whatsoever during Oct-April and are NOT shod with winter tyres, the Law will presume that the summer tyres in winter conditions were a contributory factor and will hold you at fault, even if someone barrelled out of a right hand junction and ploughed into you.

We have used winter tyres on steel rims - same dimensions but one speed rating down - and so far have never needed to use the chains which indeed we always carry, and that's including driving on 6 inches of fresh snow. Dec - winter tyres come out of workshop, April - go back in again. Reduce our stopping distance in UK by 30pc in the winter months, too. Steel rims, 48 gbp each from Skoda. Winter tyres, Finnish Nokian WR3D 240 gbp for 4 from Mytyres. Previously Pirelli Snow Control 240s which I think were quite a bit better than the Nokians, despite the reviews saying the contrary. Chains Clack and Go Weissenfels. Free from Swiss neighbour who bought a new car with larger wheels.

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Have got winter tyres, that was a non-negotiable in my mind.

Just deciding on chains, interesting you have the exact weissenfels I was looking at, how have they been?

To LaForet's point, the wessenfels come with a exchange policy so you can swap them when you change cars (if you have not broken them), good job your neighbor did not know that Smile

Take on board through that they are a 9mm but thats as thick as I can go with the clearances on my car. However they are £130 so hopefully meet the quality bar. I think I will go with those as a happy medium between cheapy cheap and super expensive at £280 plus.

Appreciate everyone's help.

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@valais2 - Yes the photo was taken going north on the N57 between Jougne and Pontarlier. We'd come off the autoroute 'round Lac Léman by Lausanne because although it was clearer, the slush was really bad between the lanes and cars were skidding every time they moved form one lane to another. And the traffic was already dense, and fast. We didn't want to be in those conditions all the way to Bourge en Bresse. (Which underlines another summer+chains problem, that in such partially slushy conditions, summer tyres would have been lethal and chains impractical.) - It seemed safer to go across-country, even if we were going to hit proper snow. We were all cruising around 50-60Kph on the above sections, no problem, so I think it was the right decision.

@gordonrussel76 - Yes, I'm fine with 9mms if they're quality product, which yours are. But people buying cheap 9mm ones at £50 aren't getting the same thing as you are at £130. And almost always you only fit chains to the primary driven wheels even on an AWD/4x4 but just check with your Owner's manual or garage. If you have a recent BMW and are using chains and/or in snow, you need to (confusingly) disable DSC and enable DTC by pressing the car-with-wavy-lines button: see the Owner's manual. Other modern cars have similar traction control thingys you need to switch on or off if you don't want them to work against the snowchains.

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Help!!

Are chains a legal requirement in France, are snow socks legal

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