Dunedin drainlayer Barry Wells was travelling down the hill at 10am in an Isuzu truck when it slid on ice and crashed into a power pole, which broke on impact, dropping a power line across the road.
"I was coming from Stafford St on the way to help my nephew with a job and all of a sudden there was no steering and I lost control.
"It [the truck] just went," Mr Wells said after the accident.
"I was lucky the power pole broke."
Moments later, a driver who did not wish to be identified slid down a steep bank as he tried to avoid the fallen power line.
His Mitsubishi Lancer struck a concrete power pole before veering down the bank.
It was badly damaged in the crash.
"I hit the brakes to avoid the power line across the road and by the time I saw the ice it was too late," he said.
Neither driver was injured.
"They were both really lucky [to avoid injury]," Senior Constable Bruce Cunningham, of Dunedin, said.
"Because the road is shaded by trees, it's stayed frozen and it's caught these people out.
"The normal reaction when people slide on ice is to hit the brakes.
"The contour of the road probably doesn't help much, either," he said.
A motorist on the Peninsula became another black ice casualty and wound up on the wrong side of the Otago Harbour seawall, at the corner of Portobello Rd and Bacon St, Broad Bay, on Saturday.
Senior Constable Lox Kellas, of Portobello, said the 50-year-old man lost control of his car when he was driving towards Dunedin about 10.45am.
