One Fatality Reported After Lorry and Three Vehicles Collide on A9

A man has died following a road traffic collision involving a lorry and three other vehicles in Highland Perthshire. Emergency services, including the air ambulance and fire crews, were dispatched to the scene on the A9 near Ballinluig at approximately 08:15. Two individuals were transported to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. The road remained inaccessible for over 10 hours, eventually reopening at 18:47. This closure left hundreds of motorists stranded in freezing conditions on diversion routes measuring between 26 and 36 miles in length. The northbound diversion directed traffic via the A822 at Dunkeld, then onto the A826 and A827, before re-joining the A9 north of Ballinluig. Southbound traffic was rerouted along the A924 to Bridge of Cally, the A93 to Blairgowrie, and subsequently the A923 to Dunkeld before re-entering the A9. Police advised drivers to avoid the route if possible. Writer Murray Watts reported being delayed in a substantial traffic queue on the diverted route for more than three hours as temperatures fell. He described conditions of “gridlock,” noting that articulated lorries and coaches, having been rerouted from the A9, struggled to navigate past each other on the alternative road. Mr Watts, 71, who was travelling to Perth from John O’Groats, indicated that the journey from Pitlochry to Blairgowrie, a distance of about 24 miles, took almost four hours. However, he stated that his primary concern was for those who might have been trapped for an even longer period. “The diversion that was created was completely inappropriate,” he said. “There were still hundreds of people haplessly trapped in freezing conditions when I eventually moved off and the worry is they will be stuck for many hours to come. “Tragically, accidents happen all the time on the A9, but I have never been in a diversion where I have been sat there for hours without moving.”