Gold Coast traffic: M1 gridlock as holiday-makers hit the road for Easter

THE M1 is at a standstill as motorists crawl towards the Easter long weekend. If you’re headed south, be prepared for 24km of gridlock hell.

The M1 is in gridlock as holiday-makers head off for Easter. Picture: John Gass

THE M1 is in 24km of gridlock as the Thursday Easter exodus hits, plunging the city’s main highway into gridlock from Worongary to Tugun.

Holiday-makers who thought they would get a head start before the Easter long weekend are stuck in a hellish jam southbound.

RACQ spokeswoman Lauren Ritchie said the M1 had the terrible trifecta of Easter long weekend, school holidays and the Commonwealth Games.

Southbound from Worongary to Tugun is currently the most congested, but there’s hot spots further north too.

“There is a bit heavy traffic around Coomera heading south, around Helensvale we are seeing some red zones of traffic as people are heading south,” she said.

“There are plenty of cars on the road already, it is bumper and bumper.”

It follows a chaotic afternoon on the Gold Coast with three crashes in just over an hour.

Emergency service crews are currently on the scene of a nose to tail crash at the entrance to Parklands Drive from Smith St.

Police are directing traffic as paramedics treat the occupants of the cars after they crashed at 2.15pm.

This bingle follows a motorcycle and car crash on Cayuga St in Nerang which was reported at 1.30pm.

Paramedics took the motorcyclist, aged in his 50s, to Gold Coast University Hospital suffering knee and hand injuries.

The first crash this afternoon involved a pedestrian and car on West Burleigh Rd just after 1pm.

Queensland Ambulance Service took the pedestrian to Gold Coast University Hospital with a suspected leg injury.

There was also gridlock this morning on M1 after a truck and car crash on the M1 took two hours to clean-up.

This follows an early morning crash between a car and parked truck at 4am on the corner of Nerang St and Ferry St.

The driver of the car was taken to Robina Hospital in a stable condition by paramedics.

A Queensland Fire and Emergency Services spokeswoman said fire fighters were needed to make the scene safe.

She said the car had crashed into a parked truck.

Police were not required according toe QPS spokeswoman.