Black Ice Blamed for 8-Car Pileup on Route 4 Overpass

An eight-car crash closed Route 4 westbound for 1 1/2 hours Monday morning and sent four people to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police said.

Police blamed weather conditions, specifically the thin coating of transparent ice, known as black ice, for the pileup, which occurred at 7:30 a.m. on the Route 4 overpass around where the highway splits into Route 208.

A single westbound car lost control and skidded into the divider, setting off a chain reaction that ensnared a total of eight cars, Officer Michael Franco said.

The pileup forced police to close the Route 4 overpass in both directions from Route 208 North to Virginia Drive until 9 a.m. The state Department of Transportation responded to the scene with additional salt to melt the buildup of ice, he said. 

Four of the people involved in the pileup were taken to area hospitals.

Two individuals complaining of neck and back pain, and a woman complaining of back and leg pain -- whom police believe may have been hit by a sliding car after exiting her own wrecked car --were taken to Hackensack University Medical Center, police said. Another individual who was unharmed, but shaken up by the pileup, was transported to Valley Hospital. 

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