ROSEVILLE, Minn. - You can just imagine the phonecall.
"Yeah, boss... I'm going to be a little late."
A driver in Roseville Friday morning ran into some trouble with the snowy, icy roads. Many did, as documented by the avalanche of crashes, spinouts and slowdowns that were on MnDOT's Twitter feed this morning. When the numbers come in later Friday afternoon the number of incidents is sure to be in the hundreds.
Thing is, most of the mishaps don't look like this one. The driver of the blue 4x4 pickup lost control of the vehicle while driving on the 2500 block of Walnut Street around 7:30 a.m., skidded off the road and had the truck ramp up a power pole guide wire.
Roseville Fire Chief Tim O'Neil tells KARE 11 the driver was unable to get out of the vehicle due to its precarious position on the guide line and instability. Had the driver shifted his weight it might have caused the vehicle to slide off the wire and possibly roll.
Fire crews stabilized the vehicle and removed the driver from the cab of the pickup. The man wasn't injured... unless bruised pride counts.
The accident caused a small temporary power outage in the area.
Plenty of other motorists had a tough start to the day as well. The State Patrol reports that between 5 and 10 a.m. across the Twin Cities metro, troopers responded to 85 crashes, 11 of them involving injury. An additional 22 vehicles spun out or left the road.
Statewide the numbers were slightly bigger, with a total of 115 crashes, 15 involving injury.
