A BOLTON driver has been praised for preventing a massive pile-up after the brakes on his lorry failed. Police officers say people may have died in the terrifying accident if Mark Beddows had not acted as he did.

The cool driver pulled away from a line of stationary traffic and smashed into the sides of the cars to slow the vehicle to a stop.

Mr Beddows was driving his 16-tonne Bedford goods vehicle down steep Victoria Road towards the busy junction with Chorley New Road, just after noon on Saturday, when the brakes failed.

Mr Beddows, who runs a skip hire business, pulled the lorry into an outside lane and then crashed into the side of seven cars.

Mr Beddows, 34, of Radston Close, Sharples, said: "I'm not sure what caused the brakes to go.

"When it happened I was desperately looking for a garden that I could go into but there were too many trees and I didn't want to run into one of them because I had a passenger in the cab.

"But there was a line of stationary traffic in front of me and if I had gone into the last car in the line I would have run over it.

"I looked down the outside lane and there was nothing coming so I pulled out. Some cars started coming towards me but I waved them out of the way.

"Then I used the sides of the line of cars to slow me down. It only lasted about 10 to 15 seconds so I didn't have a chance to feel nervous. It's only after it has finished that you begin to feel a bit shaken."

The truck crashed into a Toyota Corrolla, Daewoo, Volkswagen Golf, Honda Civic, Vauxhall Corsa and Vectra and a Ford goods vehicle.

Amazingly only one person, Jane Makin, 49, of Salisbury Road, Horwich, needed hospital treatment for whiplash injuries.

A police spokesman said a Department of Transport examiner would inspect the vehicle today.

He added: "The accident would have been far worse if he hit the traffic head on.

"The alternative to what happened was a head on collision with a lot of serious injuries and it's quite possible someone could have been killed. In the circumstances Mr Beddows did very well."

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