Motorists in Esher were left stuck in queues for hours on Monday morning, when icy conditions caused three accidents in the area.

The first took place in Portsmouth Road at 6.18am, when a black Renault Megane collided with a blue Skoda Felicia. The driver of the Skoda suffered minor chest injuries and was taken by ambulance to Kingston Hospital.

The next accident took place at 6.45am in Woodstock Lane North in Hinchley Wood, when two vans approaching the A3 entrance collided. The crash caused one of the vans to come off the road and mount the right side, while the other van ended up on its back in the patch of grass to the left of the road. A spokesman for the South East Ambulance Service said nobody was injured.

The road was closed by police, causing a massive traffic jam as cars were diverted away from the access to the A3.

A witness said: “I passed the scene on the slip road to the A3 and saw a van on its back in the adjacent field. There was a horse nonchalantly eating grass right next to it, but it must have had a lucky escape not to have been hit.

“The journey out of Esher was snail paced. There must have been a lot of frustrated boy racers that morning. They are used to zooming down those roads in their sports cars, but this morning they just had to wait like the rest of us. You have to comfort yourself with those kinds of thoughts when you are stuck in traffic like that.”

In a busy morning for the emergency services, there was another accident in Portsmouth Road, just after 7am, when a silver Citroen estate left the road and sustained damage to its offside. Again there were no injuries, but Portsmouth Road remained closed until 7.50am.

Sid Taylor, who had been trying that morning to get to Roehampton, said traffic in the area was “excruciatingly slow”.

He said: “It took me an hour and a half to get from my front door to the A3, a journey that usually takes five minutes. It was absolute misery.

“At first I imagined it was just the roadworks on the Kingston bypass, but once I had been stuck down Manor Road South for half an hour, I realised something more serious must have happened.

“I put the travel news on and heard there had been a number of accidents in the Esher area. The roads in the whole town were just at a standstill.”

Surrey Police also received reports that morning of problems with the set of traffic lights at the junction of Ember Lane and Portsmouth Road, causing more traffic congestion in the area.

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