Rush-hour commuters today faced a traffic nightmare as a major route into the city was closed when a police car collided with another vehicle while answering a 999 call.
The part of the B4114 known as St John's, in Enderby, was shut between Narborough Road South and the Foxhunter Roundabout following the accident at about 5am.
The police car had been answering an emergency call when it collided with a blue S-type Jaguar outside Leicestershire Constabulary's headquarters.
The driver and passenger in the police car were taken to Leicester Royal Infirmary for treatment, but the driver has been discharged.
The Jaguar driver was treated at the scene. Nobody is believed to have been seriously hurt.
The closure of the road - while the vehicles were recovered and the crash scene was examined - caused huge delays for more than two hours for commuters in the west part of the city.
Sally Hurst, of area traffic control, said queues started building up at about 7.20am and only began to clear about three hours later.
She said: "It was completely solid, horrendous. There were queues from the Foxhunter roundabout in every direction. Enderby, Narborough and Blaby took quite a bad hit, as well as the A47 and Aylestone Road. It has been bad all over that side of the city this morning. Even when the road was reopened it took about an hour to clear up because of the weight of traffic."
Chef Janine Shirley, who works at the Toby Carvery on the Foxhunter roundabout, decided to walk to work from her home in Enderby village after hearing about the problems.
She said: "It was really bad - the traffic was at a standstill earlier in the morning. At about 10am it finally started to get moving again.
"It took my neighbour 30 minutes to get from the roundabout into Enderby village."
A police spokesman said: "It is a busy route, so there has obviously been congestion with the road closure."
The police car was travelling towards the city when it was in collision with the Jaguar, which was turning right into Leicester Lane.
The city-bound carriageway of the B4114 reopened at 9.26am, and Leicester Lane was expected to reopen later.
The crash will be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the standard procedure when police cars are involved in accidents.