As someone who has lived in the Midwest and now in Colorado, and has driven all over the US in all seasons, as well as overseas in various other countries, I /r

As someone who has lived in the Midwest and now in Colorado, and has driven all over the US in all seasons, as well as overseas in various other countries, I /really/ /really/ wish we would stop salting roads and people would instead do proper vehicle maintenance, including swapping to winter tires during winter. There's no nice way to say this, but the big elephant in the room is that in the US cars are essential to daily living to millions of people literally too poor to buy a set of winter tires, and as far as the government is concerned salting the roads is massively cheaper than having proper public transport. I don't think owning a car should be a luxury item, but there's some midpoint here that we as a society aren't grasping where we not only expect, but nearly enforce, that people too poor to change their oil or have proper tires should still own a car. In societies with good public transport, /everyone/ uses it, not just those of lower economic circumstances, and cars become a less necessary piece of infrastructure that can be treated more as a middle class convenience than a bare necessity, which is basically what it should be. It regularly blows my mind seeing shit heaps that are clearly unsafe rolling down the highway with paper tags that expired 2 years ago on them, that have clearly never been properly registered or inspected. That should be made untenable in our society, but we cannot do that without also providing a pathway for people to get from where they live to where they work and to community resources. We've painted ourselves into a corner by building car-centric cities, not investing in public transport, and creating a social condition where a small but prevalent portion of society can't maintain what little possession they manage to own. Salting the roads is only a benefit to folks who don't have a properly maintained vehicle suitable for the environment they are living in. And it's a detriment to everyone else. Salt absolutely destroys cars, it destroys the roads, and it destroys the ecosystem as well.