A crash stopped A12 traffic in Essex between junction 12 Mountnessing and junction 13 Heybridge on the Colchester-bound carriageway. Drivers faced 20-minute delays on the approach, with two miles of congestion building behind the stoppage.
Mountnessing to Heybridge
The blockage hit the section of road that carries traffic towards Colchester, leaving one carriageway at a standstill while vehicles queued behind the scene. For drivers already on that stretch, the immediate issue was not speed but distance: two miles of traffic had already formed.
Essex Police on scene
Essex Police was the agency expected to clear the road, and the carriageway was to remain stopped until officers could remove the vehicles. That left the timing of any reopening tied to the clearance work rather than to the congestion itself.
The delay figure gives the clearest practical guide for anyone approaching the area: even a short journey on paper could stretch by 20 minutes while the stop remained in place. Once the vehicles were moved, the queue would still need time to disperse along the Colchester-bound carriageway.
Colchester-bound carriageway
The problem sat on a specific side of the A12, not the entire route, which matters for anyone deciding whether to hold back, reroute, or wait for the line of traffic to thin. At the point of reporting, the road was still blocked, and the only fixed next step was the removal of the vehicles by Essex Police.
