Everything you need to know about winter driving preparations

In terms of winter driving, there are risks associated with winter conditions , even for an experienced driver and despite road maintenance operations.

Individually adopting appropriate behaviour according to the road environment increases your safety and that of other road users.

Visit this section to find out what you need to know about preparing for winter and winter driving.

Understanding road conditions: a tool to plan your trips better

Concerned with the safety of drivers and making their trips easier, the ministère des Transports du Québec has developed standard terminology for describing winter road conditions.

Thus, to help guide the behaviour of drivers, it developed a colour code where each colour corresponds to a winter road condition associated with a tip.

For example, expect longer travel time and, in some cases, put off driving.

Remember that the Ministère provides real-time road condition information on its Québec 511 Info Transports Web site, which is then retransmitted by the media, especially television networks, including Météo Média, which uses the same terminology.

Winter Road Safety Campaign

Once again this winter, the ministère des Transports will launch an advertising campaign to make all drivers aware of their responsibility regarding the need to adopt safe behaviours in accordance with winter driving requirements.

Billboard advertisements, radio, television and the Web are the main media used for the campaign, which will convey messages that remind drivers of the importance of installing winter tires on their vehicle before December 15, adapting their driving to changing road conditions and planning their trips before getting behind the wheel.

Advertisements will be posted between November 2, 2009 and March 14, 2010.