I took the risk because I presumed that nothing stupid like that would happen to me and because I knew I'd almost certainly be okay no matter what since I'm in the suburbs. However, the warning specifically highlighted things that the average Joe will definitely not figure out for themselves unless you hammer them home, primarily that the windchill and blowing snow means You're fucked if you get caught in the middle of nowhere. Hence why I say that if that would've happened to me like a couple counties south in the middle of nowhere, it would've have been a very dicey situation. The entire point of the NWS is to make everyone's lives easier by offering reliable forecasts. I don't see why we would want to strip their ability to do their job away from them. Not all winter threats are built the same, why is that so controversial? It can snow an inch overnight and not even warrant an advisory, or it could snow an inch in the middle of rush hour with cold road temperatures and fuck everything. Most people I know don't even start checking the weather until they catch wind of some sort of bigger story brewing, so methinks that a large number of advisory events would slip through the cracks until they show up out of nowhere and make you 45 minutes late for work. And guess who gets blamed if that happens?