Car ends up on top of another as fire and three crashes cause M6 delays

The bizarre accident was the second crash to trouble drivers heading north near Birmingham after an earlier pile-up closed two lanes for five hours.

Elsewhere a blaze closed the exit at Junction 9 for Walsall at lunchtime and a car was left in ruins after an early morning smash near Junction 1.

The peculiar pile-up happened when a coach slammed into the back of a car which then ended up on top of another car between Junction 5 for Castle Bromwich and Junction 6 Spaghetti Junction at around 11am.

Six vehicles were involved in total, but the Megabus driver was the only casualty and suffered minor injuries.

The coach was left with a cracked windscreen, while the bonnet of the bottom car was completely ripped off.

The few passengers travelling on the Megabus were stranded on the hard shoulder of the motorway until a replacement bus arrived at 1pm.

Police opened up the inside lanes once the passengers were cleared from the motorway, but long delays remained as a result of lane closures further ahead caused by an earlier lorry pile-up.

Nobody was injured in the three-lorry crash but two lanes were closed from around 9am while the HGVs were recovered and a fuel spillage was cleared.

Highways England arrived at the pile-up between Junction 5 for Castle Bromwich and Junction 6 Spaghetti Junction at around 9.30am and the lanes were not back open until after 2.30pm.

The lorries were unable to move from the middle-lane pile-up and engine fluid had spilled into the adjacent inside lane, meaning first two and then three lanes were shut to allow the trucks to be retrieved and the spillage to be cleared.

By 11am the two inside lanes were back open but delays of around one hour remained back to Junction 4 until all lanes were finally back open at 2.30pm.

And northbound drivers planning to leave the M6 at Junction 9 were faced with further disruption when a trailer carrying heavy goods caught fire in one of two blazes near Walsall.

Fire crews from Willenhall and Walsall put out the blaze and re-opened the exit road shortly before 2pm, just as police officers were putting out a fire at Junction 10.

It was a bad day for the driver of that car, as once the engine fire was extinguished the vehicle was seized for having no insurance.

The northbound exit road was closed at Junction 10 while the car was recovered.

Elsewhere on the M6 a four-vehicle crash near Junction 1 completely destroyed the front end of one car at around 7.45am.

Nobody was seriously injured in the crash which left debris scattered across all three lanes of the southbound carriageway around half a mile before Junction 1 for Rugby.

Three cars and a lorry were involved in the smash.

West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman Murray MacGregor said: "Thankfully, the injuries were not too serious, which allowed traffic to start moving again while emergency services worked at the scene.

"A man in his 40s was helped out of vehicle before being taken by ambulance to University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire with a suspected head injury.

"Three other patients were discharged at the scene. A 24-year-old woman had aches and pains, a 32-year-old man was complaining of minor neck pain and a man in his 40s was uninjured after assessment."