The first measurable snow of the season may not have have been much, but it was enough to send a number of drivers sliding across the roads Wednesday morning.

Lincoln had received 0.4 inches of snowfall by 1 p.m., according to the National Weather Service.

Between midnight and 9:45 p.m. Lincoln Police had responded to 107 traffic accidents, according to the department. To compare, police responded to 30 total accidents on Tuesday and 26 on Monday.

The Lancaster County Sheriff’s office responded to 15 traffic-related calls between 6 and 9 a.m., said Sgt. Andy Stebbing.

The most serious call was an accident at 5:38 a.m., when a driver suffered a broken arm after hitting the guard rail on Interstate 80 by mile marker 409, Stebbing said. Otherwise, it was mostly fender benders or cars in the ditch.

Even though the roads were slick, Stebbing said speed was the main reason cars slid off the road.

“Cars don’t go into the ditch at 25 or 35 mph,” he said. “People go into the ditch driving along the interstate at 80 mph.

“It takes a snow or two to remind them to slow down for the next six months.”

Even though the city has been laying down a salt-water mixture on its roads every week for the last month, the mixture had mostly washed away by the time the snow fell Wednesday morning, said Roger Tiedeman, west district manager with Lincoln Public Works.

The city normally lays down the mixture, which acts as an anti-ice agent, on arterial streets and bridges each Wednesday and Thursday.

However, the city didn’t apply the solution last Thursday because of Thanksgiving, Tiedeman said. And although the city did lay down the mixture over bridges on Tuesday, rain and snow flurries over the weekend had washed the solution off of the the arterial streets.

Reach Hilary Kindschuh at 473-7120 or hkindschuh@journalstar.com.