Vermont Sets No Season for Studded Tires and No Removal Date

The word "stud" appears exactly once across all 27 chapters of Vermont's motor vehicle title, and it appears as an exception rather than a restriction. Section 1092 sits in the violations-and-penalties subchapter of 23 V.S.A. chapter 13 and is aimed at "any flange, ribs, clamps, or other object attached to or made a part of" a wheel that will "injure, cut into, or destroy the surface of the highway or bridge to any appreciable extent." The second sentence then carves studs and cleats out of that prohibition on its face. Because the carve-out is written into the road-damage offence itself and not into a seasonal-use section, Vermont never acquired the dated windows that neighbouring states run. New York, for example, confines studs to October 16 through April 30; Vermont has no equivalent date in statute.

The carve-out is not unlimited. It protects studs "of a type designed for general use to facilitate travel in winter," which is a description of ordinary consumer winter tire studs, not of competition or industrial hardware. A wheel fitted with flanges, ribs or clamps that chew the pavement remains prohibited by the first sentence of § 1092, and the exception does not reach those. Section 1083(a) adds a separate speed rule that catches the extreme end of the same problem: no vehicle equipped with iron, steel or solid rubber tires may be driven faster than 10 miles per hour anywhere in Vermont.

Tire chains sit in an entirely different place in the statute and run the opposite way. Under 23 V.S.A. § 1006c the Secretary of Transportation, the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles or the Commissioner of Public Safety may require chains on specified portions of State highways during winter weather for vehicles rated over 26,000 pounds GVWR or GCWR. Advance notice must be given through signage and, where possible, public service announcements, and there must be an adequate pull-off area for fitting them. The section then prescribes exactly which tires must be chained on solo, trailer and semitrailer combinations. An operator or the operator's employer who fails to chain up faces a $1,000 civil penalty, rising to $2,000 if the failure substantially impedes the flow of traffic, and doubled for a second or subsequent conviction within three years. Nothing comparable exists for studs.

Vermont does inspect every registered vehicle once a year under 23 V.S.A. § 1222, so a lane check is a real possibility here in a way it is not in states that abolished inspections. It still does not catch studs. The tire pages of the DMV Periodic Inspection Manual (VN-113, revision 3/2026) reject a pleasure car or light truck only where tread falls below 2/32 inch in any two major grooves, cord shows through a cut or worn spot, the structure has separated into a visible bulge, tires on the same axle differ in type, construction or size, or a tire is marked "For Farm Use Only," "Off-Highway Use Only" or "Racing use Only." The advisory items cover tread between 2/32 and 4/32 inch, tire size that does not match the manufacturer's specification, tires over eight years old, and weather cracking. Studs appear in none of them.

chapter 29. Where the statute fixes no specific figure, § 2302(c) caps the penalty at $1,000. Section 1092 also carries two points on the driving record under the § 2502(a)(1)(JJ) schedule, and two more are added under § 2502(b) if the violation caused a crash that was the violator's fault. Ten points inside two years triggers suspension proceedings under §§ 2505 and 2506, beginning at a 10-day suspension and rising to 30 days at 15 points and 90 days at 20. None of that reaches a driver running ordinary winter studs, because the second sentence of § 1092 removes them from the offence.

A separate exposure exists at inspection time: § 1222(c) makes operating without a valid inspection certificate an offence, and § 1225 lets the Commissioner suspend the registration until the owner complies.