Drivers treated themselves to an ice cream after they became stuck in miles of traffic on the M56 on Wednesday evening. In a video shared to social media, people can be seen walking up to a stationary ice cream truck in the middle of the motorway before ordering their favourite icy treats.
The clip was taken amongst the standstill traffic on the M56, beside the junction with the M6 northbound. Earlier in the evening, all traffic had been stopped from all directions as police tried to locate a male who had escaped from a nearby prison, causing huge queues and a complete standstill for two hours.
Highways North West announced, shortly after 6pm, that due to the incident, all traffic approaching the M56 and M6 junction would be stopped. This caused severe delays on both motorways in each direction, with drivers urged to avoid the area.
Traffic was first held at around 6pm, and did not start being released again until around 8pm, two hours later - by which point there were significant queues in each direction. There was a large police presence as Cheshire Police tried to track down Jonathan Simpson, last seen at nearby Thorn Cross in Appleton at 9am on Wednesday morning.
But unconcerned about being stuck in traffic, many drivers opted to leave their cars and queue up for an ice cream, close to the M6 northbound junction. In a video shared to Twitter by Ross Harper, he can be heard saying: "No word of a lie, an ice cream van is serving ice cream, on the M56."
He adds: "I best go and get myself a '99." He told the MEN: "We were stuck on the M56 for around three hours. I think somebody must have knocked on the ice cream van window asking if they could get an ice cream and then the next thing you know more and more people were rocking up to get one, I was literally in stitches when I was watching it happen."
The clip is taken from the hard shoulder of the carriageway, and shows three lanes of congestion, with the ice cream van in the middle lane. At the end of the of the clip, Ross is seen holding a vanilla ice cream topped with hundreds and thousands and sauce.
