” Several hundred “ of vehicles were temporarily blocked, Wednesday evening, January 10, 2024, on the A75 in Puy-de-Dôme, after a heavy goods vehicle slipped across the road due to snow, indicated this Thursday 11 January 2024 the prefecture atAgence France-Presse (AFP).
Across the entire department, the results of firefighters’ interventions have “been relatively limited” with nine snow-related outings, “only crumpled metal” And “five very lightly injured”, depending on the prefecture.
“Inappropriate behavior” of a heavy goods vehicle
The incident “occurred around 8:30 p.m. near the town of Saint-Germain-Lembron, in the south-north direction causing a 4 km traffic jam. Before 11 p.m., the situation was restored”specified the same source, adding that a diversion had been immediately put in place.
“We are really dealing with inappropriate behavior on the part of the truck driver […] who tried to climb a slope that he should not have, knowing that all the other drivers had stopped at the Saint-Germain-Lembron area upstream, that is to say on the hard shoulder of ’emergency “according to the same source.
Thirty-five trucks, which had parked on the emergency lane while waiting for the situation to resolve, were put back on the road “along the water”with some “salters to open the road”.
A poorly anticipated episode
The traffic restriction on the A75 for heavy goods vehicles over 7.5 tonnes was put in place around 9:30 p.m., before being lifted on Thursday morning. An update on its maintenance or lifting will be made ” during the day “. That applied from 6 p.m. on a portion of the A89 motorway linking Bordeaux to Lyon via Clermont-Ferrand, due to continued snow, was lifted during the night from Wednesday to Thursday.
A truck driver, arrested around fifteen kilometers from his delivery location, reported to BFMTV the lack of anticipation by the competent authorities. “We were in denial”, he indicated, seeing gendarmes arriving after 10 p.m. A journalist from the continuous channel shared images of users on X (formerly Twitter):
Moreover, the department of Puy-de-Dôme had not been placed on orange vigilance on Wednesday (but on yellow vigilance), and it is not on this Thursday either (no particular vigilance).
10 to 15 cm of snow
Still according to the prefecture, cited by theAFP, 10 to 15 cm of snow had fallen on this part of the highway at the height of the day. Météo France published a map of snowfall in the region on Wednesday evening:
This Thursday, the weather will be marked by a snowy episode in the morning over part of Occitanie, and will be rather sunny in the north, according to Météo France forecasts. Five departments are placed on orange snow-ice alert: Aude, Aveyron, Hérault, Lozère and Tarn. Orange flood vigilance is maintained in Pas-de-Calais.