North Wales Police successfully stopped the vehicle being driven on the incorrect side of the A55 – North Wales Expressway – on Monday evening
The horrifying moment a taxi was caught driving on the wrong side of a busy dual carriageway has been caught on camera by a motorist who said he could have been killed.
A North Wales Police officer used a spike strip to stop the passenger van as it travelled toward oncoming vehicles on the A55 North Wales Expressway on Anglesey on Monday evening.
The force said no-one was injured during the incident, but that prior to the vehicle joining the highway a cyclist was knocked over. They suffered non-life threatening injuries, in Holyhead on the island, and that a number of parked vehicles were also damaged.
One man has been arrested, said North Wales Police, and last night he was in custody as an investigation was launched.
The alarming incident, which comes days after the tragic crash in Teeside in which seven people including two police officers were killed, was captured by dashcam footage in the car of Royal Air Force serviceman Martin Williams.
The 40-year-old who captured the A55 incident on his dashcam was driving to see his father on Angelsey after a 10-hour journey from Scotland when he first spotted four police cars driving in the opposite direction.
“Then I saw ahead of me there was a police car that was slowing all the traffic down and directing everyone into the lefthand lane before we came to a stop,” he told The Independent.
“I then saw the officer in the car get out and put a stringer [spike strip] across the road. I thought the vehicle they were stopping was coming from behind me so I looked in the mirrors but then I suddenly saw the taxi coming toward me.
“It was coming quite quick, veered toward the police car and then slowed down before going over the stinger. It must have then gone about half a mile past me before it stopped and the police car in front of me followed it down the road.”
He added: “It was crazy. I thought if the police had not been there to stop the taxi I could have gone straight into it without knowing it was coming down the road toward me. That could have been the end of me.
“I don’t want to speculate what was going on, and why the taxi was being driven like that, but with what’s been happening [in Cleveland] it is worrying.”
When North Wales Police shared a post on the incident on Facebook, people were quick to draw links with the tragedy near Middlesbrough on Friday, when five young men died after their Volkswagen Passet vehicle hit a police car on the A66.
Cleveland Police aborted a pursuit of the vehicle travelling the wrong way down the dual carriageway before it crashed into an oncoming police armed response vehicle, killing PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38.
The young men killed have also been named as Makai Saddington, 18, Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Theo Rae, 17, Cole Worthy, 17, and Jakub Matusiak, 23. On Monday, Cleveland Police said 12 people have been arrested over alleged criminality leading up to the collision.
Cleveland Police said there was no evidence of filming “for the purposes of TikTok” amid concerns over a social media trend of people dangerous driving. The government has ordered TikTok to remove videos “celebrating” driving in the wrong direction.
In a statement on Monday evening’s incident, a North Wales Police spokesperson said: “Officers from North Wales Police have successfully stopped a vehicle travelling on the wrong side of the A55 this evening on Anglesey. Officers who encountered the vehicle were travelling on the correct side of the road and were able to safely bring it to a stop.
“One man has been arrested in connection with the incident and remains in police custody while enquiries continue.”
They added: “North Wales Police acknowledge in light of the recent events that have taken place involving Cleveland police the feelings that this incident may attract. We would like to offer our condolences to all those effected by those tragic events.”