well I have just got back from 4 days in the mountains of Bulgaria, I hired a BMW 5 series, with winter tyres fitted as it is winter!! the car drove perfectly, never slipped, skidded etc that you associate with RWD cars in snow, I am 100% converted to winter tyres now, you have to try them to see, well worth the investment if you want to avoid a crash.
The snow was 2 to 3 feed deep in places so the shovel supplied with the car came in handy!! Out there every shop was open, taxis were operating as normal it is only the UK that suffers greatly in this weather because we are not educated properly about tyres etc.