Why not just get the insurance on top when renting to cap your liability?

there are road conditions you cannot drive in without snow chains, and rental companies don't allow you to attach chains. these road conditions are not uncommon if you're going skiing.

effectively there are moderately common road/condition combinations that you cannot drive in a rental car.

> there are road conditions you cannot drive in without snow chains

Where is this? I live in northern part of Scandinavia, and we manage just fine with normal winter tires. Snow chains are pretty much only for semi trucks. Most people even use studless winter tires these days.

And of course rental cars have winter tires in the winter season, anything else would be illegal.

>anything else would be illegal

The US does not mandate snow tires at a national level, and in many places (even northern states where snow and ice are common) tire chains are illegal because they can damage the roads.

If you're going up steep hills covered in ice, winter tires or even studded tires are not going to work. You need chains. Then again, the best rally drivers are Scandinavian, so maybe you guys are just better drivers than we are :)

Western US. I can't comment on whether they should be required or not but they commonly are required in Utah, passes in the Sierras such as going up to Tahoe, and in the Cascades.

Seconded, grew up in far northern Minnesota and no-one uses snowchains there, though there is a preference for cars with high clearance (and some sand/skidboards in the trunk, usually). I guess I can see this if you're doing deep backwoods skiing, but that's an awfully niche pastime no? I've never heard of a ski resort that's inaccessible without snowchains.

>I've never heard of a ski resort that's inaccessible without snowchains.

Lots of them in the West. Little Cottonwood Canyon (at a minimum) in Utah. Tahoe from the Bay area (Donner Pass) under certain conditions http://www.dot.ca.gov/trafficops/trucks/chains.html. In a number of cases you can get exceptions for approved winter tires but it varies.

The entire idea is to be low cost, so when you start tacking on all these fees kinda defeats that purpose. At some point you will get to the point where it's the same cost to rent vs own.

It depends on how much you use it I guess. But the average person surely doesn't go out ice hiking every weekend.

And, most people can't: most places, only ~half the year will be cold enough to have snow/ice.

Usually you can't put snow tires on a rental and you often can't get snow tires either.