Pile-up causes more road misery

Three major crashes have marred the holiday getaway

Twenty-four people have been hurt in a multi-car pile-up on the A1(M) - bringing fresh misery to Easter getaway motorists.

Roads were returning to normal in the evening after more chaos on Friday, to add to the two major crashes the previous day.

The latest incident was caused by a caravan travelling northbound in early morning fog, which overturned near junction 48 at Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire.

Up to 60 cars and lorries were involved in a series of crashes which followed as vehicles ploughed into wreckage strewn across the carriageway.

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The incident at about 0615 GMT caused 16-mile tailbacks and the injured, some seriously, were taken to hospitals in Harrogate and Northallerton.

The southbound carriageway was opened at 1300 GMT and the northbound nearly five hours later, although long queues persisted after the reopening.

Elsewhere on Good Friday roads were busy, especially on main routes to the Lakes and the West Country.

'More jams'

But AA Roadwatch spokesman Stuart Barton told the BBC on Friday afternoon: "It's certainly looking a lot better now than it was earlier in the day.

"Round about the middle of the morning, those people who didn't get away yesterday or chose to go today, obviously hit the roads and for a four or five-hour period until two or three in the afternoon, a lot of traffic was on the move."

24 people were injured in A1(M) crash

Mr Barton predicted more congestion at the weekend if the weather remained sunny.

The English Tourism Council is expecting 2.6m trips to be taken in England this Easter, resulting in spending of about £40m.

The news will come as a welcome relief to those in rural tourism whose livelihoods were decimated last Easter by closures forced by foot-and-mouth disease.

Meanwhile, police have named two people who died in an horrific lorry smash on the M5 in Somerset on Thursday.

They were Nigel Booth, 44, a minister from Dover, Kent, and a driver in another car, Sally Hawes, 48, from Penzance in Cornwall.

On the same day, two people were also killed in an accident involving up to 100 vehicles on the M40 in Oxfordshire.