KEY POINTS:
Holidaymakers returning to Auckland were still stuck in traffic last night with delays on the southern motorway of more than an hour.
Inspector Ian Brooker, of police northern communications, told the Herald roadworks near the Waiuku turn-off scheduled for last night were postponed to avoid a traffic nightmare.
"When we could see it was going to be horrendous we asked Transit to delay it," Mr Brooker said.
However, holiday traffic around the country has this morning cleared according to the Transit and AA Roadwatch websites.
Transit is recommending motorists heading north of Auckland use State Highway 16, either by the North-Western motorway or the turn-off at Silverdale.
The AA site reported there were no significant delays across the country.
The delays yesterday began at Ramarama with thousands of motorists stuck for up to an hour.
"It's the risk you take coming home on that day ... everyone thinks the same thing," Mr Brooker said.
Minor crashes added to the aggravation, he said. But overall motorists' behaviour was good despite a few stupid manoeuvres.
"There were a few people trying silly things, doing U-turns and trying to head south. But there were no reported accidents because of that," he said.
Auckland woman Anne Gibson said it was bumper to bumper from Kawakawa to Orewa early yesterday evening.
"We were doing between two and 10 kilometres an hour. Between 5pm and 7pm we hardly moved," Mrs Gibson said.
"It was pretty bad and stressful. There was no apparent reason for it, just the sheer volume of holiday traffic," she said.
Roadworks at the Puhoi Hill was also a problem.
"That didn't help and was probably the hardest part," she said.
After Orewa, the road cleared and traffic on the motorway flowed without major delays.
