A car has crashed on Fairy Springs Rd this afternoon.
A reporter at the scene said traffic heading towards Rotorua was banked up down to Skyline.
Witness George Murray was sitting in a broken down tractor on the side of the road when he saw the crash happen.
"I thought holy hell, where is he going to go?"
Murray said he saw the police following a car south along Fairy Springs Rd towards the central city when the lights at the intersection with Lake and Clayton Rds turned red.
Murray said he saw the car trying to squeeze between the two lanes of vehicles stopped at the lights.
A woman, who was stopped at the lights in her car, told the Rotorua Daily Post she noticed a car trying to squeeze between her car and another car in the lane beside her.
She said it gave her "a hell of a fright" as the car scraped along the side of her car.
Another man who was sitting at the lights in his car in front the woman's car said the incident had left him "shaken".
The man, who was travelling to Taupō from Tauranga, said he couldn't believe what had just happened.
"Is this kind of thing normal? . . . This is a rental car and it has insurance but it is a huge inconvenience for everyone involved."
A police media spokeswoman said one person was in custody following an alleged fleeing driver event.
She said about 12.20pm a person allegedly failed to stop when signalled by police.
Shortly afterwards the vehicle allegedly crashed into another vehicle on the corner of Fairy Springs Rd and Lake Rd.
A passenger in the vehicle sustained minor injuries and was treated by St John Ambulance.
Volcanic ash has been identified more frequently in the steam and gas plume.