Over the top.

[C C]

EDP24

20 February 2006 18:49

We have all done it, left the house, locked the door, got in the car, started it, then had to nip back for something.

But for Molly Burrows, forgetting an important piece of paperwork before a lunchtime business meeting today ended in disaster.

For as the 28-year-old popped back into her home at the Warren on the cliff top at Easton Bavents, near Southwold, her Mitsubishi Pajero 4x4, which she had left running, slowly drove itself towards the cliff edge.

Moments later she watched in horror, as her and her husband's car plummeted over the cliffs, plunging more than 20ft before landing nose first in the sand.

Today, staring down at the battered wreckage from the cliff top waiting for the recovery, she said: “It just went straight over. I was going out for a 12.30pm meeting and I got in the car but it wouldn't start, so I pulled out the choke.

“Then I realised I'd forgotten a piece of paper so I popped back into the house for a second. When I went back outside the car was just driving past my neighbour's house. It looked as if someone had stolen it, it was going so fast.

“I immediately started to run after it, but the dogs were running alongside me and I tripped over Maggie.

“Before I looked up I was hoping and praying that it might have stopped before it got to the cliff edge, but as I looked I just saw it disappear,” she said.

“The handbrake was on, but the choke is just so powerful - it just went.”

But after already facing the first ordeal of watching the sad demise of her car, Mrs Burrows then had to break the news to her husband David.

She said: “Straight afterwards I just panicked, I didn't have my mobile because it was in the car so I ran to the house and the only number I knew off-by-heart was my parents so I called them and they managed to get my husband's number for me.

“When I told him, he was in the bakery and he just laughed. It was very odd. He said it was the strangest conversation he had ever had when buying his lunch. But he was just relieved that I was OK.”

Emergency services attended the scene at shortly after 12.30pm and the car was eventually recovered at 3.30pm.

Mrs Burrows said: “It's just such a shock, I'm just relieved no-one was hurt. Also normally I would have had the dogs in the back, I'm just so glad they weren't in it too. We have been told the car will be a write-off but at the end of the day it's just a car, and you can replace that,” she said.

[/quote]

[bezzabsa]

well thats 1 less jap import
hmm powerful choke.....was it in gear by any chance??
saying nowt about women drivers

[Dirty Gertie]

saying nowt about women drivers

sensible chap! (A female Landy driver'd never do owt that stupid!! :P )

[Evilgoat]

Mum's done that!

Was being lumpy, stalled, Yanked the choke, and started it again and put it in drive...

Mowing down two road close barriers, handfull of cones, one pneumatic drill and driving through the ditch the guys were digging.

Chokes + Autos = Bad

Odds on she left it in D and on the handbrake.

[Ja1983]

is there not a legal aspect of leaving a motor running whilst not been in it?!


...i suspect this is one reason why its in force!


...that and the fact that any half witted chav would be straight in it and off down to tear up the local park, insurance company will say "not our problem!"  :roll: