THE FIRST heavy frost of the season prompted upheaval in Tayside this weekend as icy roads caused a number of accidents around the region.

Tayside Police reported a total of 19 road traffic accidents throughout the area on Saturday morning alone, when conditions were particularly icy, rising to a total of 40 by the end of the weekend. Fortunately no-one was injured.

Police were keen to stress that not all of the reported RTA’s were down to the weather, but said that the busier than normal Christmas traffic was adding to the seasonal woes.

Roads around Dundee were described as “ice rinks” by commuters who reported a number of cars in fields and difficult driving conditions.

One driver travelling into Dundee from Longforgan said, “There are a couple of cars off the road in fields and another couple near the Swallow roundabout.

“It is an ice rink out here. It’s absolute mayhem.”

Theresa Carberry, manager of Land of Leather said, “I was skating all over the place and my car skidded into the barriers at the roundabout and nearly ended up in the small pond in the middle. ”

Police confirmed there had been a number of incidents including a three-vehicle pile up when a Ford Escort crashed into a lorry and was subsequently rear-ended by a Citroen. All the drivers were unharmed.

There were several accidents on the A90, a car off the road at Longforgan, and crashes at Baluniefield and in Dundee at the B960 junction at Clepington Road.

Tayside Contracts, who maintain the roads in the area, said they had gritted the main routes in Dundee overnight but also maintained standby operations throughout Saturday.

“We have standard systems based on temperatures which cover all our standby routes, and in conjunction with Dundee City Council the gritters automatically go out to those areas,” said managing director Iain Waddell.

“They were out on Saturday night but there would have been some gritters out again this morning because it is still wet and there has been water running off the fields in some places which runs the risk of freezing again.

“Around Dundee we have about 14 standby routes which are a priority and they were all gritted last night. These are the main bus routes and roads people travel to work on. After that we look at the secondary priority routes on housing estates etc.

“On a couple of occasions the temperature has been down to around minus one and two overnight.

“However, we have been quite late this year. If you go back 15 years we were getting called out around early October but these days it’s not until the end of October.”