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A truck plummeted over a railing and crashed on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel on Wednesday afternoon, injuring a dozen people and disrupting the preholiday travel plans for thousands of riders.

The crash was startling, with the vehicle, an orange garbage truck, landing nose-first on the westbound lanes of Route 495, which carries traffic flowing out of Manhattan.

The accident came at the worst possible time of the holiday week, snarling traffic across many Manhattan streets as drivers struggled to reach other tunnels and bridges and leaving hordes of commuters fuming in long lines to board packed trains or wait out the accident cleanup.