if you get a reasonably capable vehicle with 4WD or AWD
you don't need to do anything but drive.

That's fine if you only have one car coming and going each day, but my wife
and I leave at different times and neither of us wants to commute in a
truck. Then there's the licensing, insurance, and maintenance of a truck
unless you drive one anyway.

Also, we can have a foot of snow here, and completely bare pavement just a
mile or two down the road. It doesn't make sense to drive a big gas guzzler
truck when the majority of our commute is completely clear.

Even snow tires would be hard to justify, both for cost and the hassles of
swapping them with regular tires every year. We only get a few snowstorms
each year, and the last several years we've had practically nothing. We
would just end up wearing out the snow tires before we ever really needed
them.

Anthony