Moment of horror on motorway
THIS is the terrifying moment plastic guttering comes loose from the back of a van and is propelled 60 feet across a motorway head-on into the path of a car.
Driver Danny Critchley, who captured the incident on the dash-cam in his car, says he was lucky to avoid a serious accident.
The footage shows four lengths of 6ftlong plastic guttering spiralling through the air like javelins towards him on the northbound M6 just past Ashton-inMakerfield in Wigan.
They can be seen coming loose from the back of a white van going the other way on the southbound carriageway.
Danny, 32, who was heading towards junction 25 at the time, estimates they were propelled at least 60ft across the central reservation and into the path of his car as he was driving to work.
The married father-of-two from Wigan said: “The load just took off. Some of it was in my natural blind spot as well so I couldn’t see where it was.
“It made me jump and I think I swore, but I didn’t know what had hit me, it happened really quickly. I was worried because there were other cars next to and behind me that I thought could have got hit too, and they could have side-swiped me trying to avoid hitting the load.
“Looking back it could have been a lot worse. When I watched the video back it made me jump. It’s only when you slow the footage right down that you can see how far it flies.
“The guttering doesn’t look very heavy but when it’s travelling that fast it can do some damage. “
He added: “It’s very common to see ladders in the road that have fallen off vans. I think a lot of company drivers are under pressure to get to jobs quickly and perhaps don’t spend as long as they should making sure their load is secure.
“In this case it seems to have been a builder on his own, perhaps an independent roofer or something. The best thing was that no harm was done.”
See the video at www.manchester eveningnews.co.uk/news