When Frank Lecerf drove off to do his weekly supermarket shop in northern France, he was not expecting to embark on a high-speed car chase that would force him over the Belgian border and on to the national news bulletins.
Mr Lecerf (36) has filed a legal complaint after his Renault Laguna, which is adapted for disabled drivers, jammed at 200km/h and the brakes failed, forcing him to continue careering along a vast stretch of French motorway and into Belgium. Police gave chase until he ran out of petrol and crashed into a ditch.
He was on a dual carriageway when the car’s speed dial first jammed at 100km/h. Each time he tried to brake, the car accelerated, eventually reaching 200km/h and sticking there.
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 Mr 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.
Barriers raised
Puzzled motorists gave way as the high-speed convoy approached. Three toll stations were warned to raise their barriers as Mr 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 200km 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 suffered two epileptic seizures.
A Renault technician had been on the phone with police throughout the chase but could not come up with a solution.
Mr Lecerf said it was not the first time his dial had jammed but that Renault had looked at the car and assured him it was fine. His lawyer said he would file a legal complaint over “endangerment of a person’s life”.
Renault told France 2 TV it would await the results of an investigation. – (Guardian service)