It's stuff I keep in my car in the winter and I'll use it if conditions warrant. Now it's true that, if you live in a city or are just walking someplace from your car in a parking lot, you probably won't and you're just careful. (Though I would absolutely use a pole if sidewalks were bad enough.) And, yes, people do sometimes slip and fall on ice and they sometimes break bones, etc. But I'm not sure what the alternative here is. If you need to go to the corner store or walk to work, you need to go to the corner store or walk to work. You can't hibernate all winter.

You can certainly limit your exposure. I switch my walk to work to a bus on overly cold days. The first comment in this thread literally describes doing this:

> Forget the health benefits, until it warms up I am not going to walk anywhere other than to my car. Even that can be dangerous at these temperatures.

If you need special equipment, you are not getting people to do long walks in winter conditions.

> You can't hibernate all winter.

People reduce all kinds of outdoor activity in winter, and depending on where you live you may have spent an entire year limiting what you do outside.