No way around crash delays - Minister

Motorists may have to get used to traffic disruption of the kind which caused major delays on Dublin's M50 and adjacent routes into the city, said Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey yesterday.

Road crashes are increasingly being treated by gardaí as crime scenes, said Mr Dempsey, and are consequently closed for long periods to preserve evidence. Mr Dempsey said he did not see how such situations could be avoided.

Mr Dempsey said two crashes caused yesterday's problems, and emergency services had cleared traffic quite efficiently.

The Minister dismissed a call from Fine Gael for a Garda rapid reaction traffic unit saying the Garda Traffic Corps was already in place and within a few years would have 1,200 officers.

Yesterday's crash involved six vehicles which blocked all M50 southbound lanes just after junction seven, the Lucan interchange, between 6.35am and 7.55am.

Nicola Hudson of AA Roadwatch said she and Dublin city traffic controllers could see the traffic queues on cameras as delays started to build up immediately. The high volumes of Friday morning traffic quickly tailed back to junction five at Finglas by 7am, while "over the course of the morning the M50 was a no-go area and all commuter routes were affected".

A section of the M50 northbound also had to be closed to assist Garda access.

"Many people may have heard radio bulletins in time and had the facility to avoid the M50 but over two hours after the crash occurred we were still urging drivers to avoid the area," said Ms Hudson. "At 9am, M50 southbound delays were from the M1/M50 roundabout to junction 7 Lucan. Delays northbound were from before junction 13 Ballinteer to junction 9 Red Cow," she said.

Fine Gael Transport Spokesman Fergus O'Dowd said there are "repeated examples over the past years of motorists being caught on the M50 or Dublin's key traffic arteries for hours due to a single incident or road works.

"This is not good enough and Fine Gael will continue to press for the need for the road traffic officer unit which will provide back-up support to the gardaí," he said.