A crash has caused huge 90-minute delays on a huge stretch of a busy UK motorway on Saturday afternoon.
By Sam Ormiston, Assistant News Editor,Aditi Rane
A huge crash on the M5sparked 90-minute delays, with massive queues stretching more than eight miles in Somerset.
A post on the National Highways read: "There are long delays on the M5 southbound between Junction 19 (Easton-in-Gordano) and Junction 20 (Clevedon) due to a collision which had closed 2 (of 3) lanes.
"National Highways Traffic Officers, Avon and Somerset Police and South West Ambulance Service are in attendance.
"There are severe delays of 90 minutes on the approach with approx. 8 miles of congestion."
Express.co.uk has contacted the emergency services for further information.
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There are huge eight-mile queues on the M5 (Image: Traffic Cameras UK)
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Aditi Rane
All lanes have now been reopened
National Highways confirmed the incident has been cleared and all lanes have been reopened.
All lanes are now open on the #M5 southbound between J19 #Easton-in-Gordano and J20 #Clevedon The earlier multi-vehicle traffic collision has been cleared. 90 minute delays and approx. 10 miles of congestion remain on the approach. pic.twitter.com/4cL8pcODrC
— National Highways: South-West (@HighwaysSWEST) August 3, 2024
Aditi Rane
Two lanes shut
According to National Highways, two lanes on the M5 have been shut due to a multiple-vehicle collision.
— National Highways: South-West (@HighwaysSWEST) August 3, 2024
Aditi Rane
Eight miles of congestion on M5
An update by National Highways read: "There are long delays on the M5 southbound between Junction 19 (Easton-in-Gordano) and Junction 20 (Clevedon) due to a collision which had closed 2 (of 3) lanes.
"National Highways Traffic Officers, Avon and Somerset Police and South West Ambulance Service are in attendance.
"There are severe delays of 90 minutes on the approach with approx. 8 miles of congestion.
"If this closure impacts on your planned route, please allow extra journey time. Plan ahead, you may wish to re-route or even delay your journey."
The thinking is to gather enough evidence to get to the bottom of every accident and find out the if anyone is to be held responsible. The only way to gather enough evidence is to shut the carriageway. Strong viewpoints on both sides, police and motorist, are abound. gather enough evidence is to shut the carriageway.
May, 27, 1975: A 45-seater coach carrying pensioners plundged off a bridge in North Yorkshire, killing 33 people, in Britain's worst-ever road accident.
Poor road maintenance - Local councils deal with road maintenance in the UK, but with tight budgets in recent years, many councils have been cutting investment in road maintenance. Poor construction - Inadequate road construction using poor materials can contribute to potholes.
Speeding. Speeding remains a leading cause of road traffic accidents. According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), inappropriate speed contributes to approximately 11% of all injury collisions reported to the police and 24% of all fatal collisions.
The most common cause of road rage is when other drivers do not indicate, with 26.9% of those surveyed saying this is their most frequent frustration. Tailgating comes in close second (26.6%), followed by being cut off (21.6%), slow driving (17.3%) and merging at the last minute (15.6%).
Above all else the reason why there are so many roadworks in the UK has been because successive governments have underspent on the roads' infrastructure system over decades.
The reason is that these roads are often very old, perhaps thousands of years old, created long before cars were invented. They started as paths made by people walking, leading packhorses or herding animals from one village to another. Often people had to avoid objects like big rocks, fallen trees, water or mud.
Top of the list was the M25 – also known as the London Orbital motorway. It's one of Britain's busiest motorways while also being the second longest ring road in Europe. There were 7,673 reported accidents between 2007 and 2016, involving 13,064 vehicles and leading to 80 reported deaths.
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