Chicago traffic: Icy conditions lead to several crashes on area expressways
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Overnight precipitation coupled with quickly dropping temperatures made for a very dangerous morning commute Wednesday.
"The drive from my house here was kind of slippery because the car I'm driving has rear-wheel drive, so I was fishtailing," commuter Duncan McGee said.
At around 4 a.m., on Route 394 northbound near Sauk Trail, Illinois State Police confirm a 36-year-old man was involved in a chain-reaction crash involving ten vehicles.
He was driving an SUV that crashed into the back of a semi-trailer. Police said he died at a local hospital.
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All lanes were blocked for some time on the Bishop Ford Freeway in both directions near 159th Street with a serious crash involving semis. It wasn't much better across the South Side and south suburbs.
"The regular roads are blocked this one right here, 394 was blocked, on 57, everybody is going down Torrance traffic is littered everywhere and even the side streets in the suburbs were not salted so, everybody dropped the ball this time," commuter Gregory Sconyers said.
Further north on the Edens was a sheet of ice with cars spinning out crashing into the wall near Old Orchard.
As a state trooper responded to that crash, someone slammed into the troopers vehicle causing bad damage. Thankfully the trooper was not hurt.
On the Eisenhower, troopers responded to six crashes in just a matter of hours.
And it wasn't just on the expressways. A crash occurred at 31st Street and Western Avenue with some city streets were covered in patches of black ice.
"You have no product on the street, you know," Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Cole Stallard said. "It was 80 degrees last week. So that's a real big concern that there's no salt on the street. So we concentrated yesterday on bridges and overpasses because those are always the things that go first. You know, those are the things that ice up. Those are the coolest out of the roads, shady conditions, so we really focused on those."
