Traffic on the eastbound M62 in Greater Manchester was brought to a standstill on the morning of Thursday, October 22, 2026, after a collision between junction 11 for Birchwood and junction 12 for the Eccles Interchange. Police and fire crews attended the scene, according to Manchester Evening News, and all traffic was initially held while they worked.
By 7.30am, two of the four lanes on that stretch remained closed. National Highways reported delays of about 40 minutes on the approach at that point, with roughly five miles of congestion building behind the incident.
A later update from the same agency, issued around 8am, put the picture in worse terms: drivers were facing delays of an hour, and queues had stretched to eight miles. By 8.40am, one lane had reopened, leaving a single lane shut at the scene.
Why it matters
The M62 is one of the main arteries linking Greater Manchester with Merseyside and the wider motorway network, and the affected stretch sits close to the M60 interchange. A closure of this kind during the morning peak does not stay contained to the motorway itself. Traffic pushed off the eastbound carriageway tends to spill onto local roads around Birchwood and the approaches to the Eccles Interchange, and knock-on congestion can persist well after lanes reopen.
For commuters heading east towards Manchester or onward to the M60, the practical effect was an hour added to a journey that would normally take far less. National Highways' own figures — five miles of congestion at 7.30am growing to eight miles by 8am — show how quickly the queue expanded in the half hour after the initial hold.
What the agencies said
National Highways used its social media channels to keep drivers informed as the situation developed. In its first message, it confirmed that lanes one and two of four remained closed following the collision, and that Greater Manchester Police and Manchester Fire were continuing to work at the scene. It advised of 40-minute delays on approach and five miles of congestion.
The subsequent update raised the delay estimate to an hour and the queue to eight miles. Neither National Highways nor the emergency services had, at the time of the final update, given any information about the number of vehicles involved, the severity of any injuries, or how long the remaining lane closure might last.
A picture that shifted through the morning
The sequence of updates illustrates how fluid the situation was. The initial response was a full hold of eastbound traffic, a standard step when emergency crews need to reach and work safely at a collision site. That was then scaled back to two closed lanes, and later to one.
Each partial reopening eased capacity slightly, but the queue already formed takes time to clear. Drivers joining the eastbound carriageway behind the incident at 8am were meeting the tail of a queue that had been building for at least half an hour, which explains why the reported delay rose even as lanes began to reopen.
Manchester Evening News carried live coverage of the incident through the morning, and other outlets including the BBC, The Sun, The Bolton News and the Runcorn and Widnes World also reported the disruption, with accounts varying on the number of lanes affected at different points — a reflection of how the closure was adjusted as crews worked.
Advice for drivers
National Highways' updates are the most reliable source for lane status on the motorway network, and drivers planning to use the eastbound M62 between Birchwood and the Eccles Interchange were advised to check before setting out. Where possible, alternative routes or delaying the journey until the carriageway fully reopens would avoid the worst of the residual congestion.
Local roads around junction 11 and the approaches to junction 12 were likely to see heavier than usual traffic while the queue cleared, and drivers using those routes were also affected.
The cause of the collision has not been disclosed beyond the confirmation that it occurred, and no details of those involved have been released.
What to watch: whether the final lane reopens and the queue clears before the evening peak, and whether the emergency services issue any statement on the collision itself.
