Major delays are still being experienced on the eastern outskirts of Te Puke after a series of incidences on the highway. As darkness fell on Friday night, many frustrated motorists were still in gridlock or down to a crawl.

The problems started early Friday with a truckload of kiwifruit crashing off the highway just east of the township. The prolonged salvage operation caused traffic bottlenecks for most of the day, compounded by a series of crashes.

The problems coincided with heavy traffic at the end of the school holidays.

Callers to SunLive told of long queues of traffic from Te Puke back to Paengaroa. Some motorists had been stopped so long, they were standing on the roadside alongside their vehicles.