Woman sunbathes on the fast lane of the M62 motorway during bank holiday weekend traffic jam

A woman went sunbathing on the outside lane of the M62 motorway after getting stuck in a traffic jam on the bank holiday weekend.

Lilly Willetts, 27, was on her way to Blackpool on Saturday with her partner Sam Wadsworth, 26, when they were stuck in their van between junction 21 and 22 after an oxygen tanker caught fire further along the road.

Thousands of people were caught up in the traffic standstill and were told it could last three hours.

Instead of staying in their vehicle, full-time mother Ms Willetts decided to top up her tan.

She grabbed a blanket from the back of their Citreon Dispatch and placed it in the fast lane of the motorway between the cars, before lying down to catch some rays.

Ms Willetts, from York, North Yorkshire, said: “I’ve never done it before but at the time I just did what I needed to do.

“I sunned myself for about 20 minutes then there was talk that people were going to start moving so I jumped back in the van. I got a lovely tan.”

She said: “My children were spending the weekend with their dad so it was just the two of us.

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“We set out at 10.15am as we had a full day planned out, we were going to go to Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Madame Tussauds.

“We were driving down the M62 having just stopped at the services when we saw a big cloud of smoke, and all of sudden came to a standstill.

“When we got stuck in the traffic jam I spat my dummy out as we had all these plans – I’m quite a diva.

“This was at about 12.30pm and on social media it said it was looking like we’d be there until 5pm, we were gutted.

“We got out straight away because it was boiling in the van. We went for a walk, not too far, we just went up an embankment where a man gave us two bottles of water, he was lovely.

“I then decided to work on my tan and lay in the road surrounded by stationary cars. I wasn’t bothered about people looking at me.

“The way the weather was I thought there might be people further down the motorway doing the same but I guess not given the number of people who commented on the picture I posted on social media.”

Her partner, Mr Wadsworth, a landscape gardener, said: “It was a case of making the best of a bad situation – might as well get a tan while we were there.

“We were just sat on the barriers on the central reservation and then Lily got the blanket out.

“Lily’s not just a bit crazy, she’s a lot crazy but that’s what I love about her.”

In the end, the traffic didn’t start moving until 3.45pm so the couple decided to go to Clitheroe instead of Blackpool.

“We went to a pub and sat in the beer garden to enjoy the sunshine,” said Ms Willetts. “I had a few glasses of wine to calm down after being stuck in traffic, we then went to meet Sam’s nana.

“If I ever got stuck in another traffic jam like that I’ll definitely do it again, but next time I’d make sure I take more pictures.”