A teenager driving for the first time since passing her test found herself trapped in gridlock for eight hours on the M25 in Essex this week, one of numerous drivers left stranded after a crash near a major shopping center triggered a full closure of part of Britain’s busiest motorway.

The disruption began around 5:30 a.m. local time Thursday following a crash near junction 31 for the Lakeside Shopping Centre in Grays, Essex. What was initially expected to be a routine incident response turned into a prolonged closure, with the affected stretch of motorway not reopening until 8:40 p.m. that evening. National Highways said the extended shutdown resulted from a combination of factors, including an oil spill that required roughly a quarter of a mile, or 400 meters, of road to be resurfaced, with the hot weather further slowing the cooling process needed before repairs could be completed.

Among those caught in the resulting gridlock was Beatrix, a 17-year-old from Romford, east London, who was making what should have been a 20-minute journey with a relative on one of her first drives since passing her driving test. Beatrix said she and her cousin lost all means of navigation early into the ordeal after both of their phones died, leaving them to rely on road signs alone to find their way. “It was me and my cousin in the car and both of our phones died. So, we didn’t really know how to get back and we were following road signs,” Beatrix said. “I’ve never driven on the M25… so, that was very scary.” Despite the pressure of the situation, Beatrix said she believed her driving instructor would have been impressed with how she handled the unexpected test of her still-fresh skills, even as one of her arms became sunburned from sitting in the stationary traffic for hours. Temperatures in Grays reached 29 degrees Celsius, or roughly 84 degrees Fahrenheit, on Thursday, adding to the discomfort for drivers stuck without air conditioning relief for extended periods. Beatrix added that her parents, unable to track her location and unaware of when she might eventually make it home, were “so worried” throughout the ordeal.

Beatrix was far from the only driver whose journey was dramatically extended by the closure. Rosie Potter, a 29-year-old civil servant, described what should have been a roughly hour-long drive from Lakeside to Colchester turning into a more than nine-hour ordeal. Potter left the retail car park at 1:30 p.m. and did not arrive home until 11 p.m. that night. She recalled growing increasingly anxious as evening approached without any resolution in sight. “I thought, ‘Oh no, am I gonna be stuck in my car overnight in the dark in an area that I don’t really know very well?’” Potter said. She described the practical difficulties of being trapped for so long without basic necessities. “You can’t sit there for eight, nine hours with your engine running and your aircon running,” Potter said. “There’s no water. There’s no access to any toilets. There’s no food. There’s nothing. There’s nothing around.” Potter also described encountering other stranded families in similarly difficult situations, including parents who had left home for a quick errand only to find themselves stuck for hours without supplies for their children. “There were people with babies that had literally nipped out to the shops and were then stranded for hours and had no milk, no bottles left for their children,” she said.

Some motorists sought refuge at the Thurrock service station, only to find themselves unable to leave the car park once traffic backed up further. Sara Tidy, a 63-year-old journalist traveling from Stansted Airport to her home in Benenden, Kent, described the scene at the service station as chaotic but at times almost communal, with drivers finding creative ways to pass the time. “Literally hundreds of cars” filled the area, Tidy said, describing children playing tennis in the car park to stay entertained during the wait. Tidy also spoke with members of a band who were traveling to a gig outside Norwich and risked missing their performance entirely because of the delay. “They had their drums and guitars and stuff on the tarmac to entertain themselves,” she said. Tidy also described encountering a woman in the car park who was in urgent need of medication and growing increasingly distressed as the hours passed without any clear resolution to the closure.

The scale of the disruption extended well beyond the immediate crash site, with severe congestion reported across Grays, Purfleet and the wider Thurrock area throughout the day. According to reporting on the incident, two lanes of the clockwise M25 and an associated entry slip road remained closed for most of the day, with queues stretching approximately 10 miles back toward Brentwood. One motorist, Graham Potter, described the scene as “absolutely ridiculous traffic gridlock at Lakeside,” noting that his daughter had been stuck in stationary traffic for seven and a half hours.

National Highways issued a public apology following the extended closure, describing itself as “deeply sorry” for the eight-hour waits drivers endured. Responding to affected motorists on the social media platform X, the organization confirmed it would undertake a formal review of how the incident was managed, from the initial crash response through the extended resurfacing work that ultimately kept the motorway closed for more than 15 hours.

The M25, which forms a roughly 117-mile orbital route around Greater London, is one of the busiest and most heavily trafficked motorways in the United Kingdom, and closures of this length are relatively rare even given the road’s history of periodic congestion and incident-related disruptions. Thursday’s closure adds to a string of recent M25 disruptions in the Essex area, though the combination of an oil spill, resurfacing needs and extreme summer heat made this particular incident notably longer and more disruptive than typical crash-related closures on the route. With National Highways now committing to review its handling of the incident, drivers affected by Thursday’s gridlock said they hoped the review would lead to faster resolution of similar closures in the future, particularly given the extreme heat and lack of basic amenities many described enduring throughout the day.