Teen driver narrowly avoids head-on crash with out-of-control lorry

A TEENAGE motorist managed to avoid an extremely nasty accident by successfully swerving out of the way of a lorry that lost control on the A34 near Speen, Berkshire.

Dash cam footage released by Bethany Pearson shows the terrifying moment a goods vehicle travelling in the northbound lane smashed through the central reservation on a stretch of the dual carriageway, on August 1, 2019.

Remarkably, considering the closing speeds of the two vehicles, Pearson managed to narrowly avoid the oncoming lorry. She also managed to keep control of her car after making the evasive manoeuvre, keeping the vehicle on the straight and narrow as it veered side to side along the road.

The forward-facing dash cam wasn’t the only camera that caught the shocking incident. The teen had also installed in her vehicle another dash cam facing rearwards, with the footage it captured showing just how close the lorry came to colliding with the car.

Speaking to Storyful, Pearson put her lucky escape down to a driver experience event she took part in around a fortnight ago: “I’m just thankful that I did a skid pan driving experience two weeks ago at Thruxton circuit. I think it really helped me to keep control of the car and I’d recommend the course to anyone.”

According to Highways England, the incident occurred at around 8:22pm and was severe enough for the government-run company to halt all traffic along the affected stretch of dual carriageway. By 6:45am the following day, one of the southbound lanes had been reopened and vehicles were allowed down both carriageways from around midday.

A few seconds later, definitely would’ve hit me! Anyone know if everyone is ok? #A34 scared the absolute shit out of me!!!! pic.twitter.com/llzB7x0TWc

— bethany (@bethanylolok) August 1, 2019

Last Friday afternoon, the second southbound lane was still closed to traffic to allow the necessary “extensive repair work” to be carried out, resulting in delays on this stretch of A34 of around 30 minutes, though traffic conditions were expected to return to normal between 6:30pm and 6:45pm that day.

It’s unclear what exactly caused the lorry driver to lose control of his vehicle. As the dash cam footage shows a plume of what looks like dust erupts from underneath the lorry’s trailer shortly before it veers to the right and it’s thought the articulated goods vehicle crash was caused by a tyre blowout.

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