A woman was in tears after almost being involved in a crash on the M11 in the snow and being stranded on the motorway for several hours.

Sam Tyne was travelling back home to Rainham on Sunday night (December 11) when she became stuck near junction 4 of the motorway in South Woodford for almost three hours. 

She left Ongar at around 8pm and did not arrive home at Rainham until around 12.40am.

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Sam said: "It was shocking.

"A Porsche lost control and almost hit us, it missed us by inches and then I burst into tears. 

"There wasn’t any support from police. We saw one police car and one fire engine the whole time.

"It was normal people out of their cars pushing and towing everyone.

"It would have felt more reassuring seeing police or fire there and definitely more gritting vehicles clearing roads.

"I'm just glad we got home safe in the end."

A spokesperson for the Met Police said that police are not responsible for the running and operating of the motorway network.

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They said that this is down to National Highways, formerly known as The Highways Agency.

Police respond to emergency incidents such as collisions where a person has been injured.

They added that it is, therefore, not uncommon to see few police vehicles on motorways.

A National Highways spokesperson said: "Gritting runs on the M11 were undertaken at 11am, 7pm and 10pm with further treatments in the early hours of Monday morning.

"The predicted snowfall of 1cm differed greatly from the actual snowfall received which was in excess of 10cm in some locations.

"We apologise for any inconvenience caused to motorists on the road. The team worked tirelessly throughout the night to ensure the M11 was back up and running by the early hours of Monday morning."