I guess it depends. I’ve been in Alaska the last forty years. I’ve driven all the connected highways and then some, in all conditions and seasons, including multiple winter forays for work, up the Dalton Highway to Proudhoe Bay and back. Never felt the urge to do elective off-roading in the snow but have lots of road miles and perhaps an unintentional off-road event or two. I can say that I don‘t remember ever being unable to get where I wanted to go due to winter driving conditions, although sometimes it might not have been the safest. I’ve owned one set of studded tires and they made a little difference on the ice In the Forerunner. Virtually all of my road tires have been well siped all-season tires . Well, except for a CJ5 I bought cheap, to fix and sell that had some brand new, wide, aggressive tread tires. That was the absolute worst vehicle and tire combo for arctic driving. I drove it home a mile or so from the seller’s house. It was mid winter, about -40 and the roads were clear and dry, except for the usual ice glaze. Traction on ice improves a lot as it gets that cold. Made no diff for that thing. I turned a corner near the house at about 5 mph and did a slow motion 360 in its own shadow. A while later, I spent about four hours out in the middle of nowhere, mid winter about -30, ptarmigan hunting and that stupid p.o.s. would not move out of its own shadow on an otherwise flat, clear dirt road with exception of a little ice. Put it in gear and just sat there spinning tires at idle. I digress. The studies I’ve seen, show that studs give about a 15% improvement in ice traction compared to good all season or snow tires. I might be wrong, but in my mind, and this is for snowy/icy roads, a narrower tire concentrates the weight better between tread and ice/road. In snow, that gives a better chance of finding the hard stuff below the fluff. When I lived up a steep road and had to get in and out in heavy snows, I put chains on the old pickup. Hard to beat that for ice or snow but you really have to rig them right and stay on top of them because bad stuff can happen if they decide to break or slip off. Things like brake lines, fenders... The conditions are always changing up here. I live in southeast Alaska now, maritime climate. Rain one minute, snow or ice storm the next, black ice is very common. I think Kerplunk summed it up pretty well.
