Winter road maintenance and road traffic accidents

Winter road maintenance and road traffic accidents At this time of year driving can become perilous. A combination of ice, wind, rain, snow, fog and dark, wintry evenings can lead to hazardous road conditions and car accidents. When you take your car out on a wintry morning you are more at risk of being involved in a car crash than during the light warm summer months. The worst months of the year for accidents are October and November between the hours of 4pm and 5pm. 42% of road deaths occur in the dark. As weather conditions deteriorate in autumn and winter the roads become more dangerous. The roads are maintained by the Highways Agency, an Executive Agency for the Department of Transport, who salts and grits the motorways and trunk roads. Other smaller roads are gritted by local councils although some rural roads are not covered at all. The Highways Agency aims to reduce delays and the amount of road traffic accidents by clearing snow and preventing the formation of ice. The gritting service depends on the weather forecast and there is therefore room for error. Teams of gritters are on nightly standby throughout the country in the winter months. They wait for the temperature to drop to around 1