Police are warning people to stick to the rules of the road or face prosecution after 74 vehicles drove the wrong way down a motorway slip road.
Shortly after 4:30pm on Sunday 6 September 2015, police were called to the M60 motorway between junction five and six to reports of a serious collision between two vehicles. The carriageway was blocked and three people had been injured in the collision, with one of them trapped and needing to be freed by the Fire Service.
The motorway had to be closed whilst emergency services attended to the injured people and police detained the driver of one of the vehicles who had attempted to flee the scene.
Whilst all this was going on, a number of motorists decided they did not wish to wait and turned left onto the on slip at junction six and proceeded to drive the wrong way down the slip road.
At one point a police vehicle and an ambulance could not access the motorway via junction six to get to the scene of the accident.
The irresponsible and dangerous actions of these motorists were filmed on a mobile phone and all of their registration plates have been recorded by police. They will be offered the opportunity to attend a driving awareness course or be summonsed to court.
Police Constable Matt Picton said: “There is no good reason to drive the wrong way down a motorway, it is extremely dangerous and no excuse could ever justify these actions. The only time it would ever be ok to do so is if police have made the area safe and they instruct you to do it.
“The laws of the road are there for a reason, which is to protect motorists and people need to realise that they cannot do what they want, when they want.
“Once we complete the upgrade to Smart Motorways there will be no hard shoulder for emergency vehicles to travel on so people need to pay attention to the information that appears on the gantry.
“On this occasion we will be willing to offer education rather than prosecution for anyone willing to attend a driver awareness course. If not, then they will have to attend court and explain why they felt the need to commit such a stupid offence.”
