THREE people died on Scotland's roads within just over two hours, with five children among those injured in separate crashes.
In Argyll and Bute, two people were killed and seven others taken to hospital following a head-on crash between two cars outside the village of Connel, near Oban.
Emergency services freed those trapped, but a 74-year-old woman and a man aged 32, passengers in separate cars died in the collision at the beauty spot on Thursday around 6.30pm.
Police have not released the identities, but it is understood one of the dead is from the local area with the other a visitor from another part of the Scotland.
The elderly woman was a backseat passengers in a Honda CRV driven by a 51-year old woman.
The driver and two other female passengers, aged 49 and 46, were taken to hospital and treated for minor injuries.
The male victim was a passenger in a Vauxhall Vectra, driven by a 32-year-old woman. She was airlifted to the Southern General Hospital, Glasgow, where her condition was described last night as critical, but stable. Three children in the back of the Vectra - aged 14, five, and two - were transferred to hospital in Oban.
Police were unable to confirm if those travelling in the Vauxhall Vectra were from the same family.
A spokesman for Scottish Fire and Rescue said: "Crews from Oban arrived to find people trapped inside the vehicles and the firefighters used hydraulic cutting equipment in a bid to rescue all those involved.
"Ambulance personnel and police officers worked closely with our team throughout the incident, but sadly one passenger from each car lost their life."
Witnesses are being sought.
Earlier on the same day in Barrhead, East Renfrewshire, an 84-year-old female car passenger died at the scene of a road crash at around 4.15pm in Fereneze Road.
The 91-year-old male driver of the Citroen was taken to Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley and treated for minor injuries and released. It is not clear whether the driver and passenger were related.
The Citroen and a Skoda were in collision, with the 25-year-old driver of the second vehicle and his two young passengers, aged eight and five, also taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital where they were treated for minor injuries.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article