"Slickery" driving

For as much as I make fun of Florida boy, I realized today I, too, could use a little brushing up on my winter-driving skills.
After four years defining bad driving weather as "thunderstorms," being back in hilly terrain (this time with a manual transmission and no snow tires) is an adjustment. We got about 4-5 inches of snowfall today before I went to work, and the plows hadn't hit all the streets yet. So it was SLICK!
I had one close call today and a few instances of skidding. And I wasn't speeding either. Never went more than 25 mph all day. Most of the time near intersections, I might have been going 10 mph, tops. But when you need to stop at the bottom of a hill and there's someone stopped in front of you, but pumping the brakes makes you stall the engine, so your steering locks up ... well, that's a bit unnerving. Luckily, I stopped in time after a little skidding and a nervous horn-honking to warn the person in front of me. (I blame my no-tread tires.) I did manage to restart the engine to get the steering back and kept pumping away at the brake. But it was a wake-up call.

My co-workers said those of us who move from warm-weather states should be allowed to keep our license plates through our first winter here as a warning to others. Now I'm thinking, that's not a bad idea.