A MOTORIST is lucky to be alive after being taken on a 90mph terror ride down the M62 when his electric car’s brakes failed.
Nathan Owen tore through red lights, over a roundabout and down the hard shoulder as he completely lost control of his Jaguar I-PACE.
As the car accelerated on its own and with Nathan facing imminent death, cops managed to box in the runaway EV to end the 35-minute high speed horror this afternoon.
Badly shaken by the ordeal, the 31-year-old from Bolton, Lancs, told The Sun: “It was like a movie.
“I could’ve crashed, it could’ve killed me, it could’ve killed somebody else.”
Nathan was heading home from work in Ormskirk at around 2.30pm when he noticed a battery fault in the £32,000 motor.
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But as he overtook another car the brakes failed and all hell broke lose.
He recalled: “It just sped me up. It was going up to 80mph, 90mph. It was just going faster and faster.
“The button handbrake, neutral and reverse gears, nothing worked.
“I tried doing the cruise control on the steering wheel, it just wasn’t happening.”
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Bombing down the M62 at speeds of up to 100mph, the driver was forced to tear through red lights and over a slipway roundabout.
He then careered onto the hard shoulder to dodge traffic as he feared for his life.
The support worker managed to dial 999 and police told him to stay on the hard shoulder as they scrambled eight squad cars.
With sirens whirring, they intercepted Nathan’s car but he smashed into them unable to stop.
He said: “When you see it in movies the car goes flying off into the barriers, so that’s all that was going through my head, crashing or maybe killing the police officer.
“There were still cars on the other side of the road, staring at me. I couldn’t even see the registration of the police car in front.”
With 50 miles of range left and still on the phone to cops, they warned they could be in it for the long haul as they tried to keep the lanes free until the Jag ran out of juice.
Officers from Merseyside and Greater Manchester Police then used specialist tactics to ram the vehicle and block it in, bringing the hell-raising pursuit to a screeching halt.
The horror unfolded on the eastbound carriageway between J11 for Birchwood and J12 for Eccles.
A Jaguar spokesperson told The Sun: “We are aware of an incident involving a Jaguar I-PACE on the M62 on the afternoon of March 6.
“An investigation is underway into the cause of the incident.'”
NOT THE FIRST TIME
Shockingly, Nathan said today’s incident was not the first time his I-SPACE turned into a death machine, as he recalled a separate 18 minute hell journey on the M62 last year.
He said of the December 22 incident: “The car just sped up, I had no brakes whatsoever and that was going over 100mph.
“It was stupid o’clock at night, chucking down with rain. I was literally panicking, I was ringing my girlfriend, I thought I was going to die.”
Nathan had taken the I-SPACE in to the garage “every four months” since buying it just last year.
It just sped me up. It was going up to 80mph, 90mph. It was just going faster and faster
Nathan Owen
He says that despite the car having battery issues – including false range readings – Jaguar repeatedly told him there was “nothing wrong”.
The 31-year-old says the batteries were later part of a recall but he remained driving the car under the assurance from Jaguar.
Nathan is now recovering at home following Wednesday’s ordeal and the car is in the garage.
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He says his family are pleading with him to get rid of it.
Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cheshire Police forces were approached for comment.
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Tom Hussey
