I've driven in northern Norway with snow tyres. You're correct in saying that it's relatively safe and easy to do.

In the UK no-one even switches to winter tyres when it's cold. With snow or ice people are running on 5-10 year old summer tyres with the minimum legal tread depth.

Plus we're basically always in the melt-refreeze zone around 5 to -5c vs. a proper Norwegian winter at -10 to -40 whereby your car can form ice that will just never melt unless it's an ICE. It's just not the same at all.

I miss proper winters!