[gkop]

In California at least, it’s not that simple. There are “all weather tires” that, when paired with AWD, count for “snow tires” per CalTRANS chain control, and then there are real snow (and also, ice) tires. Guess what? You’re gonna have a better time with real snow tires versus all weather, but only the minority of vehicles in chain control in CA have them (IE the majority has chosen the wrong tire for snow safety).

[rootusrootus]

Personally I would be perfectly happy if everyone just ran those all-season mountain snowflake tires in the winter. Sure, they're not as good as a real snow tire, but they're actually pretty good overall and I'd have no problem throwing a set of those on my pickup and going over the mountain. For the kind of winter weather we routinely see west of the Cascades, this kind of tire is ideal.

But what really happens is we have a lot of people on summer tires or the crappiest of all season commodity tires. As long as you don't have to do an emergency stop or an evasive maneuver, they seem like they're adequate for Oregon weather. But I recommend everyone with such tires try a hard stop or turn (in a big parking lot of course) with these tires when it's sub-40F.