I SAW the photo in Friday's BEN of the crashed car that was in collision with a lorry, and I shuddered. I thought: that could have been me. I had to write.

On Thursday, I was on my way to a hospital appointment in Altrincham. I have never been to this district before so as I was unsure of my directions because of the changing of motorway names and numbers, I was understandably nervous.

I was near to Sale. There were four lanes of traffic, two for Sale and two for the Airport and Altrincham, and this huge lorry came racing up behind me. He was flashing his headlights, beeping his horn, and was about two inches from my rear bumper. He couldn't overtake me because of the heavy traffic in the outside lane, and I couldn't go anywhere without causing an accident myself.

Eventually a gap came in the outside lane and he overtook me, with his horn blaring all the time, he was also shouting abuse.

I was so badly shaken, I ended up crying my eyes out. I was shaking and sweating and panicking, my breath started wheezing (I suffer from asthma), and my husband had to calm me down and hand me my spray.

May I say I am no newcomer to motorways, but I have never had an experience like this before. Unfortunately I didn't get his registration number, I was so upset.

I will end this letter with this thought - if he had done what he did to me, to a driver who, for example, had only just passed their driving test, well, I shudder to think of the consequences.

Mrs S Bessell

Sundridge Close, Bolton

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.