Stuck at 125mph for an Hour

In a real-life version of the movie Speed, Frank Lecerf was forced to drive at top speed when his Renault Laguna, which was adapted for disabled drivers, went out of control. While running an errand in his home of in Pont-de-Metz, France, Lecerf found that any tap on his brakes made the car speed up -up to 125 mph!

While uncontrollably speeding through the fast lane as other cars swerved out of his way, he managed to call emergency services who immediately dispatched a platoon of police cars.

Realising Lecerf had no choice but to keep racing along until his petrol ran out, they escorted him at high speed across almost 125 miles of French motorway, past Calais and Dunkirk, and over the Belgian border.

Puzzled motorists gave way as the high-speed convoy approached. Three toll stations were warned to raise their barriers as Lecerf ploughed through. After about an hour, his petrol tank spluttered empty and he managed to swerve into a ditch in Alveringem in Belgium, about 125 miles from his home, in Pont-de-Metz, near the northern French city of Amiens.

"My life flashed before me," he told Le Courrier picard. "I just wanted it to stop." He was unhurt but had two epileptic seizures.

Lecerf was connected to a Renault engineer during the ordeal, but nothing they tried slowed the vehicle. There is no word yet on why the car accelerated out of control. More