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Tonya Papanikolas reportingThree accidents in three days; in the same place.
It's a dangerous road in a snowstorm, but can be treacherous even when the sun shines. Deputies and state workers say that's when people have a false sense of security about driving faster.
But crash rates beg the question, is this road safe?
The state says they are working on it, but drivers need to do their part too.
UDOT has recently studied the safety of both Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons. They both had similar statistics: 122 crashes happened up Big Cottonwood Canyon last year, with snow and ice accounting for about a quarter of them.
It's probably not a good day when your car goes over a canyon hillside. The driver of this car would know; she hit black ice this afternoon coming down Moss Ledge in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
Dep. Sheriff Paul Christensen, Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office: "She actually spun around backwards, and then went over the edge."
Fortunately she wasn't hurt. But county rescuers had to climb down with rope to rescue her.
Paul Christensen: "She feels she is extremely lucky and I tend to agree."
The slide off wasn't an isolated incident. It was the third on this road in the last three days.
Nile Easton, Utah Department of Transportation: "It's a bad run, but it's not unusual. Last year we had a similar run for about a week."
The Department of Transportation says slide offs in the canyon happen every time the weather turns warm, because people aren't expecting ice.
Nile Easton, Utah Department of Transportation: "A lot of what happens is that snow melts down from the sides, turns into water, goes across, but as soon as it hits the shady side of the road, it freezes up."
Another factor is speed, which contributed to two slide offs last month. Two people had slight injuries and broken bones after their pickup truck went off a cliff near Solitude.
The same day, a woman drove over the cliff's edge and flipped over. She was brought up the canyon on a stretcher and taken to the hospital.
Nile Easton: "Those speed limits aren't there just because we're trying to get people down, they're there because that's the safe speed to drive."
UDOT says the state does plan to add guardrails along this road when the weather turns warmer. But that's not a fix-all plan, either.
Nile Easton: We've had accidents where people smash through the guard rails, so we have guardrails in some places and people still hit them."
UDOT says it's not safe for crews to be fixing the roads when the weather is bad. They'll probably start the guardrails in the spring, beginning with the mouth of the canyon and working up.
They'll also widen some sections of the road this summer.
