Icy roads: Multiple accidents on highways; Gritting truck overturns on A59
Icy roads have caused accidents and jackknifed trucks on several highways early Monday morning, including a gritting truck that overturned on the A59, the motorists’ organization ANWB reported. A code orange warning for slippery conditions is in effect for a large part of the country.
The gritting truck overturned on the A59, on the connecting road to the A2 toward Utrecht. Rijkswaterstaat had the truck back on its wheels at around 6:25 a.m., but the road needed to be gritted before it could be reopened.
On the A12 near Duiven, a car overturned and ended up on its roof on the embankment next to the road. The A28 from Zwolle to Assen and the A6 between Almere-Stad and Almere Haven were both closed due to jackknifed trucks.
The KNMI issued a code orange warning for icy roads for the entire country, except Zeeland, early Monday morning. By 7:00 a.m., the Wadden Islands, Friesland, Groningen, Drenthe, Flevoland, Overijssel, and Gelderland still had code orange in effect. A code yellow warning applied to Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland, Utrecht, Noord-Brabant, and Limburg. Zeeland had no weather warnings.
“There is a high risk of accidents due to slippery bridges, roads, cycle paths, and sidewalks,” the meteorological institute, KNMI, warned. “The slippery conditions are often difficult to see, making them treacherous for road users. The slippery conditions are gradually decreasing from the southwest.”
The infrastructure agency Rijkswaterstaat urged people to stay off the roads on Monday morning, also warning of a high risk of accidents. Although temperatures are now above freezing in most of the country, the roads can still be treacherous. Rijkswaterstaat gritters are still hard at work, a spokesperson told NOS.
“When a layer of salt is laid, and precipitation falls on top of it, it freezes again, and gritting is necessary again.”
Despite the slippery conditions and icy roads, the morning rush hour was quieter than usual, with around 100 kilometers of traffic jams on Dutch roads by 7:15 a.m. “We expect many people are working from home,” an ANWB spokesperson told ANP.
“There are some back-ups here and there, but the morning rush hour is actually somewhat quieter than on a typical Monday in January.”
