Missouri Studded Tire Season: Off the Road April 1 to November 1

The prohibition is written as a driving offense rather than as an equipment or sale ban. Nothing in Section 307.171 stops a Missouri tire shop from selling or mounting studs in July, and nothing makes possession of a studded tire unlawful. What the statute reaches is the act of operating the vehicle on a public road during the closed months. The reach is deliberately broad in two directions: it applies to "any motor vehicle", so passenger cars, pickups, commercial trucks and motorcycles are treated identically, and it applies on "any road or highway of this state", which takes in city streets, county roads and the state highway system alike.

The dates need reading carefully because the legislature drew the line around the banned period, not the permitted one. Studs are prohibited between April 1 and November 1, so the usable window is the first of November through the end of March. Missouri drivers who fit studs for a late October cold snap are inside the prohibited period; the calendar, not the weather or a snow emergency declaration, controls. The section entered the statute books as Section 1 of S.B. 515 in 1976 and took its present wording from H.B. 1047 in 1996, the omnibus bill that converted a long list of Missouri traffic offenses to infractions. It has not been amended since August 28, 1996.

Missouri regulates studs but says nothing at all about tire chains. A full-text search of the Revised Statutes of Missouri returns no seasonal chain restriction, no permitted-conditions rule and no highway-by-highway chain requirement of the kind mountain states use. The only neighbouring hardware rule is Section 304.250, which is aimed at metal-tired vehicles rather than at studded rubber tires: it bars operating a metal-tired vehicle over improved highways if any road wheel carries a lug, flange, cleat, ridge, bolt or projection of metal or wood projecting radially beyond the tread, unless the surface is protected with solid planks. Caterpillar treads are excepted, and tractors with V-shaped or diagonal cleats are allowed where the gross weight on the wheels does not exceed 800 pounds per inch of cleat width. Section 304.250 runs year round and carries liability for road damage plus a lien on the offending vehicle, so the two provisions should not be confused.

Enforcement of the studded tire season happens at the roadside, not at an inspection bay. Missouri does run a biennial safety inspection under Section 307.350, and Section 307.360 lists tires and wheels among the items an official station checks, but the version of Section 307.350 effective August 28, 2019 exempts motor vehicles having fewer than 150,000 miles for the ten-year period following their model year of manufacture. Most Missouri cars therefore never see an inspection lane, and in any case an inspection performed in February would say nothing about whether the same tires were still fitted in May. The Missouri State Highway Patrol and municipal and county officers write these citations on patrol.

171 is an infraction. 1 states that an infraction does not constitute a criminal offense and that conviction of one gives rise to no disability or legal disadvantage based on conviction of a criminal offense, so a studded tire ticket does not produce a criminal record. 5. 4, as amended effective August 28, 2024, allows a court to issue a warrant for failure to appear on an infraction generally but provides that a court shall not issue a warrant for failure to appear for any violation classified or charged as an infraction under chapter 307.

3, sent by first class mail, which the court may set aside for good cause on a motion filed within six months of the date the notice of entry was mailed. Enforcement is by the Missouri State Highway Patrol and by city and county law enforcement, and there is no administrative permit or waiver process to run studs out of season.