Despite bearable road conditions, the Virginia Department of Transportation is reminding holiday travelers to remain cautious.

Churchville resident Christopher Beam is hitting the interstate to travel to Maryland with his uncle. While the roads may appear to be free of icy conditions, he says he's not taking any chances.

He says, "On I-81, I have had the road turn to ice before and it was very scary."

Christopher recalls a startling experience on the roadways even though the conditions seemed fine.

He adds, "The vehicle started sliding on it's own. It started going sideways and I ended up being stuck there for several hours."

Sandy Myers from the Virginia Department of Transportation says roads can easily be deceiving and even a little bit of precipitation can pose a problem.

Myers says, "When you have conditions like fog and low temperatures, it's very easy to get patches of black ice. We've probably seen some of that Sunday sporadically across the Shenandoah Valley."

She recommends always having a back up plan before you take off on a trip.

"It's very important that they have good mapping systems," says Myers.
"Have an alternate route and maybe perhaps expand their area of travel in case their main road is blocked by some event or weather event."

Christopher adds,"Living the around the interstate, I try and take other roads. If I am going on a long trip I might use the interstate."

While Christopher tries to use an alternate route if necessary, his uncle, Paul Beam, has another way of approaching poor road conditions.

Paul says, "If it's icy, I don't go on the roads at all."

Myers wants to remind motorists that bridges and overpasses freeze first, so take extra caution when driving across them.