A YOUNG man was lucky to escape a bad smash on a notorious stretch of a Huddersfield road.
The driver walked away from the wreckage of his car on Meltham Road in Lockwood at 10.30pm on Friday.
And a 41-year-old dog walker has revealed how he was also lucky after the car careered out of control behind him and smashed into a house wall, before rebounding on to at least one other wall before ending up on a pavement.
The sporty silver car was totally smashed in at the front and the back.
The road has been the scene of several bad smashes over the last few years – including 11 serious accidents in just over a year, one of them fatal.
The 41-year-old dog walker, who asked not to be named, said: “I was walking the dog when I heard loud banging and crashing behind me and had to run for my life.
“I thought ‘oh my God’ and then just started running.’’
He said the car which was travelling towards Meltham hit a house wall first before smashing into another wall around 100 yards away.
It is believed there was only one person in the car at the time – the young man in his 20s.
The dog walker said: “I spoke to him briefly and he said he had a head injury. The car was so badly damaged at both the back and the front I couldn’t work out its make.
“Thankfully the young man seemed all right.’’
The crash happened close to Beaumont Park Garden Centre near to where Kirklees Council has put in some traffic-calming measures.
The dog walker said a lamp-post at the same spot had been knocked down in a crash several months ago, and although it had been replaced it had yet to be switched on.
He said he had spoken to Kirklees Council several times about it.
Police recently revealed that drivers were continuing to drive at crazy speeds on this stretch of road.
Officers clocked one driver at 75mph in the 30mph zone on Meltham Road as they checked the speed of vehicles between Lockwood and Netherton.
Tickets were dished out to 30 motorists by Kirklees Road Policing Unit during the weekend operation at the beginning of October.
In July last year, 17-year-old Christian Lang from Birkby died when the VW Golf he was in collided with a Skoda Fabia.
The driver of the Golf, his friend Daniel Neary, now 19, admitted causing his death by dangerous driving and was jailed on October 18 for two years.
A man in his 40s suffered spinal injuries when a Honda Accord and a Ford Escort collided in March.
And 18-year-old Ben Armitage from Netherton sustained serious head injuries when his car overturned after hitting two parked cars in April.
Two months later a 25-year-old Huddersfield man was left badly injured and had to be cut from his BMW car when it left the road and hit a lamp-post.
In July three people, including a 19-year-old bridesmaid, were seriously hurt when two taxis collided head-on.
