Furious motorists blamed the lack of gritting on Tayside’s main arterial route after it became a scene of carnage last night as car after car skidded off the snowy road.
More than 20 crashed vehicles littered the M90 near Perth and the A90 between Dundee and Forfar.
A family with young children were left stranded in the snow outside Forfar after their vehicle skidded and left the dual carriageway.
Police received numerous reports of incidents on the same stretch outside the town from around 6pm onwards, with up to 15 cars thought to have ended up undriveable.
At least half-a-dozen vehicles left the motorway running through Perthshire, with drivers claiming the roads had not been properly treated for the conditions.
Sections to the north and south of Forfar were the most treacherous, with crashes at both Lochlands and Muiryfaulds junctions, including one car that flipped onto its roof.
Forfar PC Scott Anderson tweeted: “I think tonight was the most road accidents I’ve attended in one shift.”
Car salesman Murray Boyle (29), who was travelling back from Aberdeen, described the surface as “sheet ice,” after his Mercedes slid into a layby on the outskirts of Forfar.
He said: “The first car I saw was a Fiat Panda that spun off the road southbound at Forfar. There was another car beside it that looked like it had spun off too.
“The next one was a Peugeot 206 that had spun off and gone through the cab of a stationary articulated lorry.
“A bit further down there was a Porsche Boxster that had gone off through a hedge and into trees and then there was a Honda Civic near Tealing.
“I can’t believe the gritters weren’t out. It was so dangerous and some drivers were still flying past at 70mph.”
Mr Boyle said police were stationed along the road from Forfar to Dundee urging drivers to slow down.
Researcher Emma Cessford (26) said driving conditions on her journey from Kirriemuir to her home in Dundee’s Coldside area were atrocious.
She added: “The road didn’t look like it had been treated. There was a covering of snow on the dual carriageway and I could feel the car slide a couple of times.
“I would have presumed since it had been snowing all day gritters would have been out in force. The journey was quite scary and we did not see one gritter.”
Police advised motorists via Twitter that “extreme caution” was required in the area.
One car also went off the road near Brechin.
In Dundee, the northbound Lochee bypass was closed off from South Road shortly before 9pm after vehicles became stuck due to the icy conditions.
In Elmwood Road near its junction with South Road, a car ended up in a garden, while another then struck a fence.