Wheel theft doesn't raise much of an eyebrow in Montreal. As you'd expect from residents of the car-theft capital of North America, Montrealers would be far more surprised to learn that a set of wheels was jacked, but the car they were attached to wasn't. So it's fitting that when Quebec became the first Canadian province to require winter tires on all vehicles, the (carbon) black market responded by stealing them off individual cars and selling them back to their countrymen. This is probably not what Maclean's meant in that contest where they invited readers to complete the sentence "As Canadian as...," and the winning entry was "As Canadian as possible under the circumstances."

The new law isn't without merit: 90 percent of Quebecois run snow tires, but the cheapskates who don't are responsible for more than a third of winter accidents. Those of you living in the sun belt may not understand how anyone can spin off into the median at speeds slower than the average treadmill, but if you live where it snows, you should really be thinking about upgrading to winter tires.

Back in the old days, this wouldn't have been an issue; everyone who drove in the snow had a set of winter tires. Bias-ply summer tires didn't have tread blocks so much as they had long, circumferential grooves — grooves that had difficulty shedding water, much less chewing through accumulated powder. Winter tires were purpose-built pieces with knobbly, zigzagged treads that looked like they belonged on construction equipment and sounded like a squadron of B-17s over Germany. The large tread lugs were designed to push through the snow rather than ride atop it, allowing the rubber blocks to make contact with the pavement underneath. To identify a tire that was designed to slog through the elements, the letters "M" and "S" ("Mud" and "Snow") were pressed into the sidewall.

Snow tires all but disappeared in the 1980s, as the advent of radials meant that manufacturers could make "all season" tires with tread blocks that were a compromise between longevity, handling, a quiet ride, and seasonal performance. A majority of all-season tires performed well enough in winter conditions that they were able to achieve the mud-and-snow certification yet were quiet enough for year-round use. It wasn't until 1995, however, that the wheels were set in motion to create a standard for severe-weather tires. A string of snowy and fatal accidents on Canada's "Sea-to-Sky Highway" led Transport Canada to work with rubber-industry associations, together designing a certification for tires that measured their performance in real-world snow conditions. Only tires that passed a battery of tests in low temperatures and on compacted snow could be certified to meet this new standard, and only tires that met the standard could display the certification logo — a snowflake on a mountain — on their sidewalls.

Today, there are three distinct types of severe weather tire that are available — all of which meet the severe condition standards laid out by tire manufacturers:

Wait, didn't we just tell you that all-season tires were jacks-of-all-trades but masters of none? Yes, but while some all-season tires aren't really optimal for any one area, there are models that do excel in enough areas to be adequate for light winter use. If you frequently drive on plowed and salted roads, there's not much need to buy a tire designed for use on hard-packed snow or a tire designed to grip on solid ice.

Be careful, though, because not every all-season tire is going to be adequate for cold weather. Some tires, such as those on hybrids, are designed to have very low rolling resistance. Others are designed to last 60,000 to 80,000 miles. Both of those types of tires work because they're made from an extremely hard rubber compound that doesn't require much energy to keep rolling down the road. While that's great for efficiency, it's a recipe for heartbreak in the winter months, where cold temperatures turn the already-hard tires into slabs of rolling plastic. Tires with a lower treadwear rating — ones designed to last 35,000 to 40,000 miles — will often have enough flexibility to stay pliable when temperatures drop below freezing.

It's impossible to mention ice-and-snow tires without mentioning the Bridgestone Blizzak, because it's the tire that practically invented the category. Introduced to North America in 1992, the Blizzak used a tread surface made of microscopic pores to soak up the moisture that forms between a stationary tire and sheet ice. Mixed in with the open-cell rubber was a softer tire compound impregnated with silica, which allowed the tires to dig into an icy surface on acceleration. The concept worked so well that now every manufacturer has its own variation on the concept: Goodyear makes tires with volcanic ash and glass fibers embedded in the rubber. Michelin builds winter tires with a highly flexible rubber compound made from sunflower oil and carbon. Yokohama uses mite-sized, hollow resin beads in the tread blocks. Toyo embeds crushed granules of walnut shells.

Despite their different approaches to the problem, what all these tires have in common are tread blocks taller than those on a standard all-season, surrounded by deep grooves so that snow can be forced out from around the tire rather than pile up underneath it. What snow does load up underneath the tire is pressed into "sipes" — thousands of squiggly grooves in the surface of the tread blocks that give the tire significantly more biting surface with which to grip. The shapes of those tread blocks are also unique to ice-and-snow tires; many have sharply angled shoulders where the tread meets the sidewall, giving the tire better lateral control while cornering.

The very attributes that make ice-and-snow tires tenacious in the muck also make them very poor tires to drive on when the roads are dry. The tall tread blocks and wide grooves, so adept at allowing the tire to shape itself to frozen roads, allow the individual blocks to shift and sway, giving cars greasy handling and squidgy steering on clear pavement. Their softer tread compounds also reduce the tire's service life: The average Bridgestone Blizzak is good for 12,000 to 15,000 miles of service before its open-cell tread compound is scrubbed off.

Every ice-and-snow tire is a winter tire, but not every winter tire is an ice-and-snow tire. That's because while ice-and-snow tires are optimized for plowing through winter wonderlands, winter tires are simply designed to provide better-than-average snow traction and cold-weather flexibility while still retaining the handling characteristics of a decent all-season performance tire.

The secret to winter tires' abilities lies in their rubber compound. Instead of reverting into briquettes like all-season tires or having a top tread of exceptionally spongy material like ice-and-snow tires, winter tires are molded from a low-temperature polymer that stays flexible into negative temperatures. Their tread blocks are larger than a snow-and-ice tire and are slightly shorter, resulting in less flex and sway than their slush-optimized brethren. Yet the tread blocks still contain thousands of intricate sipes, allowing winter tires to bite into compacted snow effectively. Some winter tires can even include some all-season capability: Finnish tire manufacturer Nokian and Dutch manufacturer Vredestein are known for producing winter tires that can run year-round in northern climes, without overt sacrifices in ride, handling, or braking.

If there's one area where winter tires suffer, it's in ice performance. When presented with a slick patch of ice, the more conventional tread design and lack of special high-friction tread compound mean that traditional winter tires are nearly as ineffective as all-seasons. For that reason, some winter tires can be studded. Studded winter tires are the 600-pound gorilla of rolling stock — they go wherever they please, regardless of what's in the way. Nothing more than a tungsten carbide nib held in a steel jacket, tire studs work on the same principle as baseball cleats, using the car's weight and centrifugal force to push themselves into patches of ice on the roadway. Like you'd expect, driving around with steel lugs sticking out of your tires does a number on the road surface once the ice is gone, and for that reason most municipalities have outright banned studded snow tires or restricted their use to a few mid-winter months. Japan outlawed studded snow tires after concrete dust — literally aerated road surface — was found in the atmosphere surrounding areas that saw heavy studded tire use. (The ban also resulted in the development of the Blizzak tire as an alternative.) Studded tires are the way to go if you need to trek anywhere that angels fear to tread. Even Montreal. Just be sure to invest in a set of wheel locks first.