@atom: this is not really uncommon, what you have seen. So many people in Norther Germany, where there are no hills or mountains, habe bought their first winter-tires ever just last year, when there was a new law, that you can be punished, when you are driving with summer-tires at winter-weather and cause an accident or other traffic-problems due that.

So I had bought my first winter-tires in 2005, when I moved far away from my work and had to drive a long distance every day. The 15 years before that, since I had own cars, I always had used summer-tires, and then the cheapest I could get. Pure stinginess.

Do you mean with "studded tires" tires with spikes? If, yes, they are illegal indeed in Germany (since January 1976), and in other countries, too. I think, Sweden and Austria are nearly the last countries, where they are allowed.


The worst reputation about stubborn driving with summer-tires into the winter-vacations to the mountains have the people from Holland. Every year, when the winter-season starts, many people in mountain-areas are mad and pissed about the Dutch people -only orignal with the camping-trailer - who are blocading the streets, because they have no experience to drive in mountains and have the wrong tires.

It may sound like an old-fashioned nationalistic prejudice - but often you get the confirmation. So last January, when in Germany we had a real winter, my wife had seen a reportage about the traffic-chaos on the streets to the mountains (to the medium high Sauerland, I think). There was a guy from Holland asked, why he's driving with summer tires into the skiing-vacations. He answered. "Ah, it's no problem. I just have made a safe-driving-training. nothing can happen."