>>Tc, I dinged my rental coming off the freeway in Madison at 30mph on Sunday. Car coasted serenely along with anti-lock shuddering away but no intention of slowing down. Exchanged rear bumper paint with a nice Tahoe. Now driving like an old lady. Today is chilly, tomorrow they say will be cold. Looking forward to shorts and BBQ at the weekend, though! ;-)
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>Rule one : have the right gear. Winter tyres and 4.4

Gee, everyone here has different ideas about rule #1 :(

Winter tires - definitely yes.

4x4 - only with 2 qualifications:

1. That the driver has sufficient skidpad training with their own vehicle to know how it responds when it finally loses grip. It can be VERY different from a 4x2

2. That the driver doesn't fall into the 4x4 overconfidence trap

Thirty years ago Schlumberger's engineer/support vehicles in northeast BC were RWD Chevy Novas. They had started out with 4x4 pickups and sport-utes but the guys would drive right through mud puddles in the middle of the dirt roads and get stuck, requiring hugely expensive pull outs. With the Novas they drove around the puddles and never got stuck.

Earlier this year Audi was running radio ads promoting quattro, with a tagline something like "Imagine a world where you never lose grip...". That's potentially deadly false advertising.