M50 driver shocked as ‘spear’ came through his windscreen

A motorist has spoken of his shock when a metal “spear” struck the bonnet of his car, smashed through the window and embedded itself between two child seats in the back of his car.

Jason Pigott was driving southbound on the M50 between the M1 and Ballymun junctions on January 4th in good conditions with low sunshine. He said he had his visor down and sunglasses on and was driving behind a car transporter when suddenly his windscreen exploded and there was “glass everywhere”.

He said he was at a loss to know what had happened and pulled into the hard side of the road. It was not until he looked over his shoulder that he saw the one-metre long metal bar, about three inches wide, embedded in the part of the back seat where the arm rest folds away.

The point of impact was between two child seats which Mr Pigott said had contained two children the last time he had made the M50 journey to his home in Galway.

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He told broadcaster Joe Duffy on the RTÉ's Liveline that he was very shaken up by the incident.

Mr Pigott said the piece of metal had flown “ like a spear” . He said his front bonnet had a deep cut indicating it had bounced there and went through the windscreen, “bounced off the dash and impaled itself in the arm rest in the back” between two child booster seats.

Metal bar

He said it had clearly just missed his head and had it hit him he would have been killed.

“It would have life altering or life ending,” he said. He said he dreaded to think what would have happened if the kids were in the back.

He has since discovered that the metal bar is a part of a leaf spring from the suspension of a large vehicle.

Mr Pigott said he reported the issue to the Garda and appealed for any witnesses to come forward, particularly anyone who might have the incident recorded on a dashboard camera. The M50 cameras were just live cameras and do not record, he said he was told.

However a spokesman for Transport Infrastructure Ireland said cameras on the M50 did record traffic. But the spokesman said the recordings were to monitor traffic movement and were not in place to monitor all vehicles from all angles and all cameras were not operational at all times. The spokesman said requests for footage from the cameras should be made through the TII website or by email. He said no request had been received up to Monday evening.