A57 Manchester Road in both directions has re-opened. The Road had been closed due to a turned-over fuel tanker blocking the road near to Blackbrook Farm.

So every picture ‘T’ells a story, In these is T for Tanker and T for thankfully no-one was hurt. I’d driven past this point earlier and the road was sheet ice, I managed to slide my car round keeping roughly straight ahead and not spinning or crashing.

I drove through about 8am, and the water run-off from the meadows above was hitting the road and freezing causing sheet ice all across the bends. But the following story is even more interesting! The silver car had lost control and crashed first, I spoke to the Slovakian couple who were in it, and this is what I learned. They had crashed after sliding on the ice, busted the front wheel and ended up where they are seen ‘parked.’

Then they were walking away from the accident towards us a couple of minutes later, when the LPG tanker driver lost control on the ice and ‘fish-tailed’ it until the liquid gas sloshed about and caused it to turn over. As the tanker was careering towards where it ended up, the couple saw it coming towards them and literally ran for their lives. The tanker then crashed and the driver couldn’t get out! The slovakian man ran to help and offered to break the windscreen with a hammer “OOOH no the driver said, we can’t risk a spark” and kicked his way out to safety. This was 9.20am GMT and the recovery and emergency service finally righted it about 14.45GMT.

Thankfully no one was hurt and if they had been I wouldn’t have posted any shots.
 Mike Smith