Motorists say they were stuck on Adelaide's Southern Expressway in peak-hour traffic for hours yesterday after a nearby crash caused lengthy lane closures.
SA Police said southbound lanes on Main South Road were closed following a crash between a motorbike and a car just before 4pm on Thursday.
The lanes were not reopened until 7:30pm.
Andrew from Nangkita, near Mount Compass, told ABC Radio Adelaide's Stacey Lee and Nikolai Beilharz that his commute home from Aberfoyle Park took more than two hours.
"It was bumper to bumper all the way through," he said.
"It was 8:15pm when I got home, so from Aberfoyle Park to Nangkita was two and a quarter hours."
Another motorist, Christie, said she was driving to Moana from the Flinders Medical Centre in Bedford Park when she got stuck at Hackham.
"If there is an accident on the expressway … sometimes you get delayed, but never this long," she said.
"This was quite extraordinary last night."
City of Onkaparinga Mayor Moira Were said she spent an hour and a half trying to get home and the incident was the result of a "unique set of circumstances".
"I was caught in it too like everybody else," she said.
"The police were doing absolutely their best to keep things moving, and in these situations it's pretty challenging.
"So I believe they were doing a really good job."
Former Onkaparinga mayor Simon McMahon said it took his wife two hours to pick up their children from child care.
Mr McMahon said moving cars to the opposite side of the road could help prevent a traffic build-up when an accident occurred.
"That's a really practical interim solution," he said.
"Obviously that's going to have an extra resourcing on SAPOL, but something has to be done."
Kaurna MP Chris Picton said the state government was looking at ways to divert traffic onto the other side of the road to keep traffic flowing when an accident occurred.
He said the stretch of Main South Road after the Southern Expressway ended, near the Onkaparinga River, was particularly problematic.
"We need to look at the traffic management of that to make sure if there is a crash that happens, that it doesn't block up the entire system and people get stuck for many hours," he said.
Mr Picton highlighted the ongoing road improvements in the area.
"We're investing a huge amount of money in upgrading roads across the south, duplicating Main South Road, duplicating the Victor Harbor Road, through to Willunga as well," Mr Picton said.
"However this is an issue where we need to do something about where these crashes happen along that stretch of Main South Road."
