I'm from Minnesota and have put in 100,000+ miles of driving there, much of it in the winter. I'm not sure how I feel about removing trees and other side-of-the-road obstacles, but just wanted to point out that it's possible in very bad conditions to drift off the road, spin out on the highway, rear-end the car ahead, etc. even if you're being extremely cautious. I hit black ice at 30 mph on the highway and my car rotated a full 540 degrees, but fortunately didn't end up in a ditch. Sometimes conditions and visibility can be so bad in Minnesota, that I don't think any outsider can understand how difficult it is just to stay on the road. I've taken drives where you see cars in the ditch every quarter mile. I rear-ended a guy once, but he wasn't even angry because he saw my car slide slowly toward him from at least 50 feet away.