Authorities say that two car accidents which happened this morning were caused by black ice on San Pablo Dam Road between Richmond and Orinda. One motorist said that her car slid down a steep embankment and smacked into a tree after she hit a patch of black ice. Photographs of the crash scene show the woman wrapped in a police jacket and her badly damaged white car being towed away.
“I will not drive this way until the weather gets better,” the El Sobrante resident said, adding that this was her first car accident.
A second more serious car accident happened nearby and resulted in a red car rolling over after its driver lost control. No one was seriously injured in that accident although the cars involved appeared to sustained severe damage.
The Contra Costa Times reports that many car accidents have happened on San Pablo Dam Road near the San Pablo Reservoir as low temperatures cause black ice to form on the higher elevated parts of the bay area. The day after Christmas a woman and her dog were killed in a two-car accident on the same stretch of road which was possibly related to black ice as well.
A cold air mass will continue to loom over the Bay Area for the next two days according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures will hover around freezing causing black ice to remain a problem.
Source: CBS SF, “Black Ice Blamed In 2 Crashes On San Pablo Dam Road,” Dec. 31, 2012
