On any surface or roadway, black ice can be a serious problem for both motorists and pedestrians.
However, when this slick condition forms on a bridge in particular, the results can be especially dangerous.
Often built with minimal shoulders, accidents occurring on bridges may rely on the sturdiness of the guardrails or barriers put in place by engineers in order to prevent an even greater catastrophe.
With this in mind, one would expect greater care taken to avoid ice buildup, but precipitation still collects and forms this transparent ice on bridges.
Bridges are often cited as locations where ice freezes particularly fast, in part because of the cooling that occurs due to the openness of these structures.
As bridges suspend over a certain distance, cold air is able to circulate all around a bridge, cooling both from above and below.
The result is ice freezing without anything being caught inside, which is precisely how black ice is formed.
For this reason, many bridges in cold weather areas will include signs that warn about ice.
Because of this freezing property of bridges and similar surfaces, black ice can develop without what would otherwise be seen as necessary conditions.
For example, exhaust from motor vehicles can produce condensation on the road, which then can quickly freeze if the temperatures are sufficiently low.
At these truly frigid temperatures, which dip far below the freezing point for water, ice can appear despite dry conditions.
Similarly strange, if temperatures rise after a prolonged amount of cold weather, black ice may still form even if the air is warmer than the freezing point.
This occurs when the road itself retains the cold, making it possible for precipitation to still freeze, transparent to motorists driving by.
With the dangers of bridges apparent even with regular ice, the increased amount of peril that a transparent slick creates can be truly harrowing.
Contact a car accident attorney if you have questions about the legal side of an ice-related accident.