'Selfish' driver opens emergency gate to escape A338 jam

POLICE hit out at a “selfish” motorist who forced open an emergency access gate to escape a tailback on the A338 Spur Road, near Christchurch.

The dislodged gate, discovered by officers on patrol last Wednesday night, was thought to have been caused during a traffic jam earlier that day.

Posting on Facebook afterwards, a local officer warned the driver put themselves and anyone else using the access at risk as the track is not a completed road and has little visibility of the high-speed route it exits on to.

The post concluded: “Queues are frustrating – we sit in them as much as causing them through our closures – but there’s no excuse for this selfish behaviour which wastes agencies’ time and, in an emergency, would prevent blue light services from accessing an incident.”