FIVE people were taken to hospital after a three-car smash on the Weymouth relief road causing traffic chaos.

A couple from Portland aged in their 20s were among those taken away by ambulance after the collision just after midday on Saturday next to the lay-bys between the Bincombe junction and the Jurassic roundabout at Littlemoor.

Diversions were put in place which saw the old Dorchester Road return to its former use as the main route in and out of town and traffic quickly built up.

A pair of pensioners travelling from their Weymouth home to Bournemouth saw the aftermath and stopped to try and help the injured.

The man, who asked not to be named, said: “If we had been here seconds before it could’ve been us.

“We were concerned that the women in one of the cars stayed warm.

“The man in the same car had a gash on his head but seemed ok.

“They were on their way to a bed and breakfast in Weymouth before going to Guernsey on holiday.”

Police have begun an investigation into the cause of the crash. It happened on the section where there are two northbound lanes and one southbound lane.

Paramedics treated injured parties at the side of the road.

Two firefighting crews from Weymouth attended the crash, Dorset Fire and Rescue Service said.

It was first thought that firefighters would need to cut the roof off one vehicle, an Alfa Romeo, to free the Portland woman but the ambulance crew was able to get her out without such action.

She was believed not to have suffered serious injury as she was taken to hospital alongside the Portland man who had been driving.

Onlookers feared that a cyclist may have been involved before it emerged that the bicycles on the ground had been on the back of one of the crashed cars.

Geoff Trim, of Dorchester Road, Weymouth, was passing by on his bike.

He said: “Cars were backed up all along the Dorchester Road and on the relief road.

“It’s all up by the Littlemoor lights and next to Morrisons.

“We knew something was going to happen along this road but I did not think it would happen here.

“We thought it would happen at the Bincombe junction.”

A man and a woman from Chelmsford aged in their early 60s were in a Peugeot 1007 while a woman from Dorchester was in a Volkswagen Golf.

Sergeant Tony Burden, of Dorchester Traffic, said of the incident: “It’s subject to an investigation.

“The roadblocks worked and traffic seemed to be flowing and five people were taken to hospital.

“It was fortunate that there were no serious or life-threatening injuries.”