[sliken]

This sounds like someone who has never driven in Tahoe and Pittsburgh. I've done quite a bit in both.

I can tell you that 80 and 50 that head over the sierras are often closed for what would be consider relatively minor snow in Pittsburgh. Sometimes it's not even the road conditions, just lack of visibility (fog or snow). Significant ice is also fairly rare just because of level of maintenance, I suspect somewhat fueled by poor California drivers and ski resorts that push for excessive road maintenance.

On the other hand Pittsburgh gets plenty of snow, plenty of storms, and I can assure you they don't close the highways unless it's a storm of the century so bad that you'll not even be able to find cars let alone drive them. Additionally the Pittsburgh area roads have significant elevation changes, often narrow, and poorly maintained. Take for instance the top 10 steeps roads in the USA. Pittsburgh has #2 and it snows there. SF has #9 and #10, but it rarely snows there. Another puzzling factor is Pittsburgh uses a ton of salt, yet has temperature variations that often lead to snow melting from salt, then refreezing in sheets of ice or "black" ice. I've definitely skidded WAY further in the Pittsburgh on ice than I have have around Tahoe. For a year or so I was crossing 3 7200 foot passes each weekend around Tahoe and in the last 20 years I'm often up around there for various reasons.

Even the average Pittsburgh driver seems to deal with snow MUCH better than the ones I find up around Tahoe area when it snows. Even though the Pittsburgh driver is likely in a 10 year old front wheel drive econobox instead of a newish AWD SUV.