I know that corridor - and I agree with you. Unfortunately, there's also a huge number of people that don't treat snow with the respect it deserves. If you live in WV or OH (or in PA near enough to the border to fake it) you still don't need to have your car inspected. In PA, you can probably still find a mechanic that will slap a sticker on anything, but it's getting harder.
In any case, you need good tires and working brakes to navigate snow effectively. Anti-lock brakes (in my opinion) are no better than a person that can properly pulse their brakes but ... if you've got even a slight warp in your rotor, you won't brake evenly enough to stop in the snow. The other problem in PA is PennDOT's "new regime". There's been far more ice packed onto the roads when it snows lately - because melting snow that's packed under tires turns to ice. I'd far rather drive on dry, crunchy snow (for traction)
Driving in Latvia, -25 celcius, 1.5 meters snowfall, main road (closest they have to freeway/motorway not cleared ... it's 2 narrowish lanes each way with no center divider).... visibility extremely poor due to continuing snow fall.... Everyone continues driving like it's +25 celcius and sunny. This means 110km/h (90km/h speed limit in the dry 70km/h in the snow) bumper to bumper (or is that fender to fender?). Never been so petrified driving in my life. Somehow it all worked out but I can imagine one false move and we would have been looking at a 100 car plus pile up.
That can be scary but there are scarier places in traffic.
Latvia does have a traffic-related death rate (per number of motor vehicles) that is twice as big (24.8) as neighbouring Estonia (11.8), or the United States (12.9), which are about on the same level, or over five times as high as Finland (4.4) somewhat further to the north.
On the other hand it's less than half of that in Russia (53.4), and one-fifth of that in India (130.1). In Ethiopia, the death rate is 200 times as big (4984).
In any case, you need good tires and working brakes to navigate snow effectively. Anti-lock brakes (in my opinion) are no better than a person that can properly pulse their brakes but ... if you've got even a slight warp in your rotor, you won't brake evenly enough to stop in the snow. The other problem in PA is PennDOT's "new regime". There's been far more ice packed onto the roads when it snows lately - because melting snow that's packed under tires turns to ice. I'd far rather drive on dry, crunchy snow (for traction)
/rant