The road over The Stang has claimed dozens of victims with vehicles slipping off into ditches and trees on the Teesdale side of the hill.
Jed Collins, of East Hope, wants to see the 1,700ft road upgraded to “priority one” bringing it into line with bus routes and more major roads around County Durham.
And a call for North Yorkshire and Durham County Councils to come together to grit the road more regularly has been backed by a Teesdale county councillor.
Cllr James Rowlandson said: “If North Yorkshire are going that far it’s stupid. It’s giving people a false sense of security on the top and turning onto an icy slope on the way down.”
Mr Collins, who is clerk of Hope parish meeting, said he could not understand why the council gritted the Barningham to Greta Bridge route at 700ft when the Stang rises to more than 1,700ft.
He added: “The morning they treated the Stang road I stopped and talked with the driver and he suggested that it would only take an extra 20 minutes to do the Stang when they did the road from Greta Bridge to Barningham.
“So there would be no great extra cost involved.”
A downhill s-bend coming from the summit of the Stang northwards has proved a particularly tricky stretch in winter.
Amanda Ainsley, who has lived at the foot of the Stang since 1999, branded the lack of gritting in the past two years “ridiculous”.
She added: “2010 was bad but since then they just do not come at all and when they do it’s few and far between.
“That hill coming over the top is a nightmare for people getting stranded and slipping off.”
Piles of grit are left at the roadside on the Stang with Boldron farmer John Tiplady contracted by the county council to come out when conditions are “severe”.
But Mrs Ainsley and her husband, Mike, have had to aid families trapped on the hill when they get a knock at the door.
Last year a family of eight were stranded.
“We tried to get them back down in a Land Rover and there were three cars that had gone off and we had to keep them warm until the gritter came up,” she said.
“We should not have to be up there putting people and children on the back of a Land Rover.”
Clare Martin makes the trip over The Stang from Stainton Village to Arkengarthdale School every weekday.
She said: “The Durham side is just not attended to at all. Up to the S-bend you are relying on the goodwill of locals to spread grit and only if they can get their vehicles up there themselves.
“You end up getting up there and it’s absolutely terrifying.
“The other week I got out and put my hand on the road to see if it was icy or not – it just feels as if Durham County Council don’t appreciate how many of us use that road.
Commuting in the other direction, Alex Law, who works at Carrs Billington, in Barnard Castle, said he’d been trying to get something done about the road for years. But he’d now given up.
He said: “I have rung the council and they cannot be bothered.
“They must have a hell of a job to put those grit piles out when it’s sheet ice top to bottom – it just about says it all.
“When you work out the cost to insurance companies, the damage would pay for the road to be gritted for the next ten years.”
When asked by the Teesdale Mercury last week, Durham County Council said it grits as many roads as it can but the Stang was a priority two route.
The council says it has one of the highest levels of gritting coverage in the UK.
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