MOTORISTS have flocked to the Worcester News website and facebook page to demand explanations for Friday's M5 traffic fiasco.

Thousands of travellers were trapped, some for up to ten hours, after a broken-down crane meant that maintenance work which should have finished early that morning stretched on into the afternoon.

Worcester's MP Robin Walker has spoken to Highways England to make sure lessons had been learned form the incident so it does not happen again. He also plans to raise the issue with the Department of Transport. His call has been echoed by Bromsgrove MP Sajid Javed, the business minister.

Worcester News readers are also demanding an explanation of how the gridlock misery was allowed to happen, and what measures will be taken to see it does not happen again.

And independent charity the RAC Foundation has called for motorists to receive compensation for delays to their journeys, in the same way that rail commuters do.

Commenting on the Worcester News website, Lowlybarnacle said: "Will Robin Walker support the RAC Foundation's call for drivers to receive rail-style compensation?

"Losing money as a result of failure (which is what happens in the private sector) is the only lesson that may have an impact on Highways England who have admitted their error."

Sue Russell said: "Why on earth were drivers allowed to drive onto a section of motorway that was closed? Traffic should never have been allowed on it, but diverted off at the junction BEFORE the closed section."

Fairymavis said: "Having spent seven and half hours stuck between junctions six and five, I want to know why the police were not managing the traffic flow? They allowed the traffic lights on the junction to manage the traffic. As I know from driving this route every week day the lights are pretty quick to change. It needed a police presence to move the traffic more quickly off the motorway."

On Facebook, Rob Barnwell said: "Where's the contingency plan? If there is one it didn't work. My wife was stuck in the grid lock for five hours, she's lost a day's work! This happens all too often and it would be quite simple to implement a reverse run of the carriageway to at least get people off the motorway!!"

Natalie Collison said: "You think as it's highways job to know how to handle all motorway situations that they would have had this sorted within two hours. They would have if this was Germany or another country."

Jus Lastin Morgan said: "I got on j6 of m5 at 615am and was stuck on it till around 10:30am, can't understand if they knew there was problems why they not shut the slip roads so we couldn't have got on then at least we could have found alternative routes but they didn't give us a choice."

But readers also noted how calm drivers remained despite being trapped for hours. Fairymavis said: "What was amazing was the attitude of the drivers. They were polite and allowed lane changes with courtesy there was no angry exchanges just shrugs and wry smiles."