Inquiry underway after man dies in Slaithwaite crash

Dec 2 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A MAN was killed at Slaithwaite as the first frosts of the winter brought icy roads.

An inquiry is underway to establish if the road conditions played any part in Andrew Bohdan’s death.

Roads had been gritted on Monday evening but there are concerns the grit may have been washed away by water running off flooded fields.

Police confirmed there were icy patches in the area around the accident.

Mr Bohdan, 43 and a keen motorcyclist, was involved in a head-on collision in Inghead Road early yesterday.

His Citroen Saxo was in collision with a Lexus at 7.40am. Mr Bohdan, of Woods Avenue, Marsden, got out of the car but collapsed with chest pains.

Passers-by and paramedics tried to help him but he died at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

The male driver of the other car was treated for shock.

Residents near to the scene complained that roads in the area had not been gritted as temperatures plummeted to below freezing for the first time this winter.

They said a number of other vehicles had been involved in minor accidents around the accident site, which is at the bottom of a steep hill.

Local councillor David Ridgeway said: “There was gritting carried out on Monday evening but obviously this could have been washed away.

“It is terribly unfortunate this accident has happened on the day we had a really hard frost.”

Temperatures reached minus 4°C in Huddersfield on Monday evening and many roads were hit by icy patches early yesterday.

Two cars skidded on ice in Ashes Lane, Almondbury, and one crashed through a wall.

And on Monday night, two women were taken to hospital after the car they were in skidded on an icy road and hit a lamppost.

Their car was travelling along Saddleworth Road at Barkisland.

Firefighters from Elland attended the scene and cut the women free from the vehicle.

The driver suffered pelvic injuries. Both women were taken to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

A car overturned on ice in Thurstonland and another vehicle skidded into a wall in Pole Moor.