PROVO, Utah — Tuesday morning throughout Utah County, dangerous road conditions made the area hazardous to be out in, let alone drive.
By 9:00 a.m., several accidents had slowed driving to a crawl on I-15.
Even though the snow was hardly “blizzard-like,” Sgt. Cameron Roden with the Utah Highway Patrol said it was still a problem.
“People are trying to get to work and speeds tend to still be high, which causes problems on the freeways, with high speeds and snow on the freeway we always have problems and lots of crashes," Roden said.
FOX 13’s Scott McKane reported from the side of I-15 earlier, showing the accumulation on the roadways and noting that it was so cold any amount of precipitation was sticking to the ground.
One person who looked outside this morning and saw the conditions was K.C. Ekins.
“I actually had a different outfit on this morning and got up to open the blinds and was like, 'oh no,'" he said.
But he didn’t make the choice to get out and drive, instead opting for the bus in order to make the conditions more manageable.
“So it's really important for people to get around, and not everyone can get around in a car,” Ekins said. “People are more are more talkative when it's snowing too, so that’s always good. I like to have a positive attitude about things, so it's good to meet people and sometimes even help them.”
He explained how on days like this, many more people go with UTA as a means of transport instead of struggling through the road conditions.
He added that "the roads weren’t even plowed yet" when he got on the bus in the morning.
His friend Chris Salleen was also very happy about his morning commute via bus.
“I know what time I have to leave my house to be down at the bus stop, and you know, it's snowing, it's cold out… I know the bus is supposed to be coming in a few minutes, and sure enough, it shows up,” Salleen said. “It's amazing — the schedules have been on time.”
The bus and public transportation system is key as well for the areas in Utah County around Provo because Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University are destination schools.
“I find that we have a lot of students that would rather take the bus” another UTA rider C.J. Dalton told us “[rather] than try and drive in it especially if they come from a different state.”
UHP and police departments are still totaling the number of accidents and slide-offs from Tuesday morning's snowstorm.
