I learned to drive in a snowy part of the US and spent my first several years as a driver in those kind of conditions. When I moved to a place that gets much l

I learned to drive in a snowy part of the US and spent my first several years as a driver in those kind of conditions. When I moved to a place that gets much less snow, but still some, I had the same sort of attitude...how are people here so freaked out and bad at this? But having lived in less snowy conditions for quite a while now, I've learned some pretty important things about the difference, a lot of which are pretty obvious is retrospect. 1) Places where it snows a lot have much more infrastructure in place to handle it. More road treatments, more frequent and better plowing, even roads are designed around snow. It's much easier to be a "good driver" in snow when you have well funded and practiced services backing you up. The reason places in, say, the American south melt down with an inch of snow or ice isn't because people are bad drivers so much as it doesn't take much snow to make roads dangerous as hell if you have no infrastructure to deal with it. 2) Similarly, in places where it snows a lot it makes sense to invest in things like snow tires because they're useful for a significant part of the year. Nobody where it snows a handful of times a year is going to buy snow tires not only because of the cost but because in addition to snowing less, many winter days can also be warm enough that snow tires are going to be a terrible driving experience and wear down much faster. 3) Perhaps most obviously, most things become easier when you do them a lot. "I come from a snowy region and driving in the snow is easy" really should be "I find driving in the snow is easy because I come from a snowy region". I used to be much better at driving in the snow when I did it all the time too, that's how practice works. But that's not really a lesson that does much good to anyone who lives somewhere with occasional snow. They probably are better off just staying home. 4) The thing I learned almost immediately is that regardless of how good you personally are, you're not alone on the road. When I first moved, I felt very comfortable in snowy conditions and regularly went out when it snowed. But it didn't take long to realize doing that meant sharing the road with people with way more confidence than skill (again because they didn't have much practice in the snow). And no amount of personal skill at snow driving is going to save you from someone else losing control and running into you.