Icy roads cause accidents in South Lakeland and Yorkshire Dales

The overturned car on the A591 this morning The overturned car on the A591 this morning

MOTORISTS have been urged to drive carefully today after ice caused at least two accidents across the region.

A 20-year-old Windermere woman was taken to hospital with minor injuries after her Mini Cooper overturned on the A591 near Plantation Bridge.

Police closed the road for a time but it re-opened at about 9.30am.

And in the Yorkshire Dales, a man was hurt after his van left the A65 at Newby, near Clapham, and crashed into a field.

The driver suffered back pain in the crash and was taken to hospital.

Fire crews from Bentham and Kirkby Lonsdale were called to the incident at 4.22am.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said its crews were experiencing difficult conditions across the county.

He explained: “We have started to get a number of road traffic accidents due to icy conditions.

“All the crews who are going out say the conditions are very bad and very slippery and, when they’re getting out of their fire engines, they’re finding it difficult in some places to stand up.”

Comments(16)

zaney5 says...
1:27pm Tue 11 Dec 12

No grit on the roads again.

ianrosie says...
2:16pm Tue 11 Dec 12

zaney5 wrote:
No grit on the roads again.
Not really a good excuse zaney5, any motorist should assume that if they needed to de-frost their car, if the fields are white - then there is a pretty good chance there will be areas on the road that may be slippery and exercise caution.

To blame no grit is a complete cop out and the responsibility to drive within the conditions should lie firmly with the motorist. After all looking at the photograph above it shouldn't have been any surprise that there may have been ice, even if the motorist had travelled from out of the area.

Just a thought!

BillyBob86 says...
4:57pm Tue 11 Dec 12

Biggest bite to the smallest bit of bait ever!!

Debbie11 says...
11:11am Wed 12 Dec 12

Ironically the gritters passed 10 mins later. The driver was not doing excessive speed and was driving carefully just unfortunate that the lorry in front of her hit ice and started to come into her lane which caused her to brake and then loose control. If the road had been gritted as you would expect with the weather forecast this could have been avoided.

zaney5 says...
11:48am Wed 12 Dec 12

Debbie11 wrote:
Ironically the gritters passed 10 mins later. The driver was not doing excessive speed and was driving carefully just unfortunate that the lorry in front of her hit ice and started to come into her lane which caused her to brake and then loose control. If the road had been gritted as you would expect with the weather forecast this could have been avoided.
I rest my case.

Lakeuk says...
12:51pm Wed 12 Dec 12

I was on a gritted road yesterday and hit black ice, was driving slow and controlled enough for it not cause me issue.

Grit isn't a magic formula for removing risk of accident

zaney5 says...
1:32pm Wed 12 Dec 12

No it isn't. But given the choice I'd rather drive on a gritted road than an ungritted one.

lakesailor says...
3:35pm Wed 12 Dec 12

Grit offers little protection against ice at temperatures below -5C (23F)

tictoc1 says...
4:40pm Wed 12 Dec 12

I think the main thing is hoping that the lady is ok and not petty comments about grit!

Kendmoor says...
5:51pm Wed 12 Dec 12

tictoc1, that is the last thing that the comments section of the gazette is for! :P

furthersouth says...
9:54pm Wed 12 Dec 12

grit or no grit, there is always icy patches at this time of year on that exact spot of road. The moisture freezes as it does not have time to dry out, rarely gets any sun at this time of year, as it is shaded by the grassy embankment, that the mini went up causing it to flip. Drive on it everyday and surprised not more accidents there. Especially as most days you get some fool right up your bumper trying to squeeze past before it goes back to one lane.

cumvagftw says...
3:46pm Sat 15 Dec 12

I've seen this car driving around windermere on full boost 99% of the time. Maximum respect to the driver for managing to control such a high spec racecar for so long tbh.

ukmann says...
4:29pm Sat 15 Dec 12

I wonder if the car had winter tyres on ....... It doesn't surprise me at all that there are so many accidents in winter when so few people invest in Winter tyres. They should be made compulsory.

ukmann says...
4:33pm Sat 15 Dec 12

I wonder if the car had winter tyres on ....... It doesn't surprise me at all that there are so many accidents in winter when so few people invest in Winter tyres. They should be made compulsory. You really can't expect the council to be responsible for your safety on the roads if you can't take responsibility yourself ......

lakesailor says...
5:08pm Sat 15 Dec 12

cumvagftw wrote:
I've seen this car driving around windermere on full boost 99% of the time. Maximum respect to the driver for managing to control such a high spec racecar for so long tbh.
Just looks like an upside Mini to me. Do you have some special knowledge that you can share with us?

cumvagftw says...
12:18am Sat 29 Dec 12

Well what can i tell you?!

The 'woman' driving it was actually pretty much daughter of the stig. Extremely talented driver.

She had winter tyres fitted yeah, was just the combination of 400+ BHP and a gearchange into 3rd insted of 5th.

click2find

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