*shrug* 19 years, all of it in snow country, and one more storm will put us past our fifth cumulative meter of snowfall since November. (6 storms like the one I've linked above, and dozens of smaller storms. No exaggeration.)
My boss and roughly half my coworkers think I'm a bit crazy for the weather I'm comfortable with. (I do have self-imposed limits, but it's usually visibility-related because I'm prone to snow-blindness.) But, and more relevantly, I do see mostly 2WD cars on the roads in these conditions. Snow doesn't slow us down all that much.
Ground clearance is useful in deep snow, but again, if the weather isn't so bad that they've stopped plowing entirely, you should never see that on a road system in snow country (although I do, sometimes, in my subdivision. We're just about last on the plow's schedule.) If it is that bad that there's actual accumulation, one should not be driving at all.
I've had the Topaz in foot+ snow (mostly parking lots, but once on an unplowed back road on a trip I could not wave off as much as I wanted to) many times without any trouble at all. The Corolla I'm driving now won't do what the Topaz did, but it's capable enough under most conditions you'll see in NB.
But except for really extreme snow areas, the real concern for 99.95+% of all drivers, anywhere, comes down to traction and sensible driving. All else being equal, small cars and small SUVs will outlast the big monster SUVs on icy conditions. AWD, 4WD, 2WD doesn't play all that much of a factor here.
Anyways, I wasn't planning to hijack the thread outright, and I'm a bit sick of winter as it is. Larry, can we postpone this until next autumn or something?
