Police have hit out at “idiots” who decided to drag wheelie bins behind their cars before letting them go on bends in the Markethill and Tandragee areas last night (Tuesday).
PSNI in Armagh says the reckless drivers would let the bins, full with rubbish, go on the brow of hills and on dangerous bends.
While one person would drive the car, another person/s would hang out the boot holding on to the rubbish bins before eventually letting go.
Branding their actions deadly, a PSNI spokesperson said: “If that was you driving the car, or hanging out of the boot holding the bin – imagine this: A car is driving along at 60mph along a dark country road. Suddenly bins appear across the path of the driver.
“They have two choices: take the chance that it’s not full and going to flip up and come through the windscreen at them, hit it, and hope that the car comes to a controlled stop.
“But the bin does tip up, it comes through the windscreen and even after those couple of seconds braking the car is still doing 40mph as the bin smashes into their head, snapping their neck instantly and causing the car to go out of control and stop goodness knows where.
“On a dark road, the good scenario is that it ends up in a hedge or a garden so it isn’t hit by another car.”
The second scenario posed was this: “The driver panics, brakes sharply and swerves, mounting the grass verge and flipping the car in the air.
“As soon as it is airborne, the braking ceases to have any impact. Hopefully it lands in an open field, and the seatbelt is working.
“In that scenario, the car rolls a few times and, if the roof and seat hold out, the driver will have potentially a fractured skull from their head being rattled off the door pillar, concussion, and goodness knows what other crush injuries as the car collapses on itself.
“That’s the good scenario. The bad one is that it doesn’t find open field and goes straight into a tree.
“That stops the car dead. The impact alone severs the spinal cord and kills the driver instantly.”
The post added: “Still funny? If you know what morons were responsible for this last night, give us a call. They could have killed you, your family or your friends.
“The incident number is 1357 of 09/01/18.
“Before you do something stupid, think of the consequences. Thankfully these were spotted by someone coming out of a side road, rather than someone coming towards them at full speed.
“If it weren’t for that, we could be holding the scene of a fatal accident with a serious criminal investigation underway by now.”
