Motorists using a busy route through West Bromwich found themselves stuck in rush-hour traffic chaos today after a pensioner was hit by a motorbike.

There were knock-on delays affecting traffic on the M5 motorway. Traffic on several routes tailed back for more than one mile at several points.

Key intersections became totally blocked after a section of Birmingham Road, opposite The Hawthorns, was shut in both directions.

Police also stopped traffic from leaving the M5 motorway at the usually busy junction 1 in a bid to stop the road chaos getting even worse.

The move followed a collision between an elderly pedestrian and a motorcyclist near West Bromwich Albion’s home ground shortly before 7am.

Investigations into the crash forced the closure of almost one mile of the busy four-lane Birmingham Road – which links West Bromwich with Birmingham city centre – between the junction 1 traffic island and and Middlemore Lane. 

The motorcycle rider is a 46-year-old man, while the pedestrian is aged in his 70s.

West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman Murray MacGregor said the pedestrian had suffered serious multiple injuries.

“He had severe left-leg injuries, a fracture to his right arm and a fracture to his right hip,” he said. “He was taken to Sandwell General Hospital.”

Mr MacGregor said that the motorcyclist had been taken to the same hospital. His injuries were less severe.

The crash was believed to have happened near a set of traffic lights, but the red motorcycle involved in the collision finally came to rest some distance away, near to the home fans’ turnstiles of the West Bromwich Albion ground’s Birmingham Road stand.

The road was reopened at around 10am.