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Tonya Papanikolas Reporting"Every year we come out and tell people to slow down in this weather. We've had a couple big snowstorms recently and people are still going fast."
Today we received the second big snowstorm in the last week, and it seems many drivers are not getting the lesson. This morning the snow hit hard between 9:00 and 11:00. The Highway Patrol said wrecks in Salt Lake County kept them busy all morning.
Thursday we had a big storm in the morning; UHP saw about 95 accidents in Salt Lake County that day. But this morning, there were about 75-percent more crashes here.
Some skiers and snowboarders don't like to hit the slopes during a storm.
Chris Searle, Brighton Ski School Director: "Some of those that don't really know the roads, that's probably deterred them."
But the die-hard snow lovers don't mind.
"In my opinion, that's the best time to come up."
Brighton Ski Resort says they got about 10 inches of snow today. The parking lot was pretty packed with cars covered in snow. Some debated whether they would brave the ride up the canyons.
Kent Mulhberger, Skier From Dallas: "It looked like the highway was just wet, so we decided to come up this way. And of course, the closer we got the mountains, the more snow there was."
But the valley was where the real problems were. Highway 201 Eastbound near Redwood Road was shut down late in the morning because of two separate crashes involving five cars. Because of all the traffic, the ambulance had a hard time getting to the scene. One person was transported to the hospital in serious condition.
Trooper David Brooks, Utah Highway Patrol: "We've been extremely busy. We've had to call troopers from off duty in to come handle crashes."
Salt lake County had 165 crashes alone, more than Thursday's storm total. Troopers say some people were driving with bald tires, and people were just going too fast!
Trooper Brooks: "I've had several where people said they were going 20-30 and they still lost control."
So how fast should you be driving in stormy weather? Troopers say you should never be passing traffic and it's best to be overcautious.
Trooper Brooks: "Sometimes 10 miles per hour might be the fastest you want to go on this freeway."
Most of the crashes today only resulted in minor injuries. Utah and Davis Counties didn't have as big of a problem,they only had about 10-15 accidents this morning.
