Studded Tires Allowed in New York From October 16 to April 30

The rule sits in the equipment section of the Vehicle and Traffic Law, § 375, at subdivision 35-a. The default is a flat prohibition: it is unlawful to operate a motor vehicle or trailer equipped with tires having metal objects protruding from the tire tread upon any public highway in New York. Studded winter tires are legal only because the same subdivision carves them out, and the carve-out is written in measurements rather than in general terms, so a tire either satisfies it or it does not.

Three dimensions control. The stud's diameter, measured inclusive of the stud casing, may not exceed three-eighths of an inch. The stud may not protrude beyond the tread surface by more than three thirty-seconds of an inch, which is the figure that matters most as studs wear and as a retread or restud job is done. And the contact area of the studs may not exceed three-quarters of one percent of the total nominal contact area of the tire, a figure the statute tells you how to compute: multiply the circumference of the outermost edge of the tread by the tread width. A driver buying an off-the-shelf studded winter tire in Watertown or Plattsburgh is relying on the manufacturer to have hit those numbers, but the statutory duty falls on whoever operates the vehicle.

The season is the part most New York drivers get wrong. Section 375(35-a) does not say when studs are allowed; it says when they are not, providing that no vehicle equipped with such tires may operate on a public highway during the period from the first day of May to the fifteenth day of October, inclusive. Read the other way around, conforming studded tires are lawful from October 16 through April 30. That is a longer window than several neighboring states allow and it deliberately covers the shoulder months of a Tug Hill or Adirondack winter, but it also means a set left on through Memorial Day weekend is unlawful.

Two classes of vehicle are exempt from the seasonal limit and may run conforming studs year round: school buses, and state or municipally owned vehicles. Note what the exemption does not do. It does not lift the dimensional limits, so a plow truck owned by a town in Erie County still needs studs within the three-eighths inch, three thirty-seconds inch and three-quarters of one percent caps. Note also that the rule reaches trailers as well as motor vehicles, so a studded tire on a towed unit is treated the same as one on the tow vehicle.

Separately, § 375(35) gives the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles authority to set standards for the manufacture, regrooving or retreading of tires produced or sold in New York and for the use of tires on vehicles operated in the state. Under § 375(35)(b) manufacturing, distributing, offering for sale or selling a tire that fails those standards is punishable as a misdemeanor, and under § 375(35)(c) no person may operate a motor vehicle or trailer on a public highway equipped with tires that fail them. Those provisions run alongside the stud rule rather than replacing it.

Subdivision 35-a sets no penalty of its own, so the general provision applies. Under Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1800(a) a violation of the chapter is a traffic infraction unless declared a misdemeanor or a felony, and § 1800(b)(1) makes a first conviction punishable by a fine of not more than $150 or imprisonment for not more than 15 days or both, a second violation within 18 months by a fine of not more than $300 or up to 45 days, and a third or subsequent violation within 18 months by a fine of not more than $450 or up to 90 days.

Enforcement is by any police officer, and the offense is complete on operation, so a car parked with out-of-season studs is not the target but a car driven on a public highway with them is. The tire trade faces a heavier consequence: under § 375(35)(b) a violation of the Commissioner's tire manufacturing, regrooving and retreading standards by a manufacturer, distributor or seller is punishable as a misdemeanor rather than as an infraction, which is the sharper end of the enforcement scheme.