A popular fly-on-the wall programme which follows the work of National Highways officers opened its new series  with the terrifying incident of when a wheel came off an HGV and hit a car.

The Motorway aired its new series on Channel 5.

The programme follows traffic officers Sharon Mitchell and Tony Monaghan. In the latest episode the two responded to the  M62 incident in which the wheel hit the car of a family-of-three who were on the way home from a shopping trip.

Officers located their car in the middle of the carriageway.

Nobody was injured during the crash, but the car was badly damaged.

Three out of four lanes were shut as the car was moved to the hard shoulder and the wheel was moved behind the barrier.

The driver of the car was described as being in ‘shock’.

Ms Mitchell said: "It was a freak accident. The family were lucky not to be hurt. They were shaken up by what had happened but they did the right thing by getting behind the safety barrier.

“The car was damaged but driveable so I was able to put it on the hard shoulder and we called for back-up to help to remove the heavy wheel and to sweep up other debris from the collision so we could reopen the road as quickly as possible.”

The episode also featured localised flooding on the  M66, affecting the hard shoulder.

Officers are seen trying to clear the water during heavy rain.