NORFOLK, Va., (WVEC) -- If you were stuck in hours of traffic near the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel on Wednesday morning, you certainly weren’t alone.
Shortly after 7 a.m., all of the lanes on the westbound side of I-64 were closed near the Willoughby Bay Bridge because a work truck crashed over a barrier.
Side streets in Ocean View, including 4th View Street and West Ocean View Avenue were part of a traffic detour.
Video shows the tangled mess and the highway traffic that came to a stop.
Virginia State Police Sgt. Michelle Anaya said when a truck crashes, it usually topples over the guardrail like this one did.
"We see it quite often because we have such a large population," said Anaya.
Even with an alternate path for traffic, cars still came to a stop on both sides of the highway.
"Unfortunately eastbound traffic was also jammed up because we had a lot of motorists that were slowing down to video the accident scene," said Anaya.
Troopers said the truck driver, 21-year-old James Ozmar III, was charged with following another car too closely. Ozmar told troopers he was trying to avoid hitting another car when he swerved and crashed into the guardrail.
Because of it, all of those morning commuters found themselves way behind schedule.
"I’ve been out here since 7:20 this morning," said driver Oliver Collins. "You can’t go forward, you can’t go backwards... at one point I think about going back home and waiting until 12 o’clock to go to work."
It was about three hours before things cleared up around 10 a.m.
Dwight Jones spent so much time waiting on the road, he had to pull over to fuel up as soon as he could.
"This is the worst that I’ve ever seen it," said Jones. "Was on my way in, I had just enough gas to make it to work and then I ran across that uh-oh moment where I said, 'I’m going to get gas because I’m going to be here for a while.'"
Driver Emily May said, "So we’re like over an hour and a half late and we always leave an hour early to get to work, but it didn’t work this time."
Ozmar was taken to the hospital for minor injuries, and he’s expected to be OK.