Wintery weekend weather caused crashes in the triple-digits

SALT LAKE CITY — Sunday’s burst of wintery weekend weather resulted in over 100 crashes according to the Utah Highway Patrol. 

UHP Sgt. Chris Bishop said as of 9:15 Sunday night there were 114 crashes on Utah’s roads. According to Bishop there were another 34 crashes reported overnight. 

Most of them were single-car accidents and happened along the Wasatch Front. However, other areas also had their fair share of crashes. 

“Later in the evening, there was a bit of an issue down near Nephi and Juab County. There were a number of crashes there that were causing some issues. One involved the semitruck and another one had a trailer overturned. So yeah, it kind of turned into a little bit of a mess right down there,” said Sgt. Bishop. 

There were multi-vehicle crashes but Bishop said the majority of crashes were caused by drivers losing control in the slippery conditions. 

No major injuries

With so many crashes, only minor injuries were reported, according to Bishop. 

“We had a few that were transported to the hospital. I haven’t seen anything really significant. Fortunately, we had no fatalities yesterday, which is always a good thing and it had to help because people were in their seat belts,” Bishop said. 

Don’t get caught off guard by wintery weather

Although Utah may have a stretch of warm days, it is not unusual to get winter storms in the spring. 

“[Drivers] think ‘it’s springtime and I’m gonna you know, increase speeds’…that’s the issue that we see, people go too fast for these winter conditions. We have to slow way down [to] whatever speed we can control our vehicles,’ said Bishop. “Anything above that is too fast for conditions. And that’s what we saw yesterday, is people losing control.”

Related reading: 

• Bad road conditions caused by rain and snow
• Certain types of tires may not cut it in Utah this winter
• Winter weather having a big impact on Utah snowpack