The moment when a stolen car smashed through a temporary motorway barrier, missing road workers by inches, has been captured on camera.

The vehicle – a black BMW X5 – drove through the roadworks at junction 27 of the M25, the Theydon Interchange in Essex, late at night on 15 March, reports the BBC. A man who was working for City TM that night was so badly affected by the near-miss, he has since left the industry.

“You don’t get many chances in life, and that night I will never forget,” he said.

The car – travelling from Hertfordshire into Essex – was later found abandoned in Romford, east London, and a man was arrested close to where it was found. However, there was insufficient evidence to charge him with any offence.

Neil Levett, Managing Director of Levett Business Services and one of the driving forces behind the No Excuse for Roadworker Abuse campaign and the Incursions Working Group, told Highways News:

“The industry is setting up the initiative of a national database to be able to record all instances of abuse and dangerous incursions into roadworks and so that we can develop a heatmap of causes, road types and works types. We need to understand how we can design risk out of the works moving forward and historic incidents will certainly help this.

“We have many instances of this occurring across the country, all day every day. To assist each other, we now have a whole set of tools and materials collaboratively produced by, and for, the sector which have been launched in advance of Road Worker Safety Week, 16-20 November.

“Essentially, we want to get the message to the public that they are abusing the people who are maintaining the roads, the very roads about which many people are complaining about the poor condition,” he explained.

“Retaining people to do this job is hard enough without them getting physical and verbal abuse, death threats, high speed vehicles driven at them and objects thrown every day.”

(Picture: NEFRA/Road Safety Week)