Westbound LIE reopened after fatal crash near Plainview

A Queens man died Friday morning when he was hit by a tractor-trailer on the Long Island Expressway, Nassau police said.

The accident, which closed all westbound lanes at the Nassau-Suffolk border for about five hours Friday, caused a massive traffic jam that stretched eastward for miles and clogged side roads and Route 110 in Melville.

The 48-year-old man, who police were not identifying until they notified his next of kin, was driving west in a Lincoln Town Car when the car hit a guardrail near Exit 48 in Melville. He got out of the car and subsequently was hit by the tractor-trailer, police said.

The road was closed after the 3:41 a.m. crash, police said. It was reopened at 8:43 a.m., according to the state Department of Transportation. The closure had been to all westbound traffic between Exit 48 and Exit 46, Sunnyside Boulevard, in Plainview. Eastbound traffic was not affected.

During the crash investigation, westbound traffic was diverted onto the north service road, creating a huge traffic snarl. Traffic on Route 110, already bogged down due to an ongoing road construction project in the area, also was congested with spillover volume from the expressway.

The Northern State Parkway was also jammed: A Department of Transportation sign advised motorists that it would take 54 minutes to travel 10 miles to get to Route 110.

More than a dozen police cars and emergency vehicles were at the scene before dawn Friday, with both Nassau police and the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department involved.

The crash site was not far from where a fatal tanker crash happened on the eastbound roadway in late January.