Driver recounts motorway 'shunt' terror

A British woman whose car became trapped under a lorry and was shunted along a British motorway has described how she thought…

A British woman whose car became trapped under a lorry and was shunted along a British motorway has described how she thought she was going to die.

Vet Rona Williams’s Renault Clio became trapped under the front bumper of the tanker as she drove along the stretch of motorway near Leeds and was pushed along at 60mph until the driver noticed her.

The incident was filmed by a passenger in a car travelling on the same stretch of road and was released on YouTube last week.

Mrs Williams (31) emerged from the ordeal uninjured but said she was terrified the Arclid Transport HGV would ram her into the crash barrier and kill her so she tried calling for help on her mobile phone.

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She told the Daily Mail: "I just screamed at the operator 'I"m going to die, I'm going to die - can you do something?' She tried to calm me down but there wasn't really anything she could do at the end of the phone."

Mrs Williams had only joined the motorway 10 minutes away from her vet’s surgery in Garforth when the vehicles came into contact, and her car became trapped under the front bumper.

In a bid to release her vehicle. she pulled on the handbrake and flashed her hazard lights to try to catch the driver’s attention, as well as that of any other road users, but it apparently took the lorry driver nearly a minute to notice her.

When he did he was “all over the place”, Mrs Williams said, and finally managed to bring both vehicles to a stop on the hard shoulder. The driver did not appear to be aware about what had happened, Mrs Williams claimed.

The YouTube mobile phone footage shows the Clio being pushed by the lorry in the fast lane of the motorway. A male voice can be heard inside the car from which the dramatic scene was captured, shouting: “He hasn’t even seen it.”

Arclid Transport said it was investigating the incident and West Yorkshire Police are also looking into the crash.

PA