A MOTORIST has described the moment a caravan he was towing passed his car on a road near Selby, claiming it was “like an item off Top Gear”.

Matt Sellars was driving on the B1223 towing the caravan he bought for £7,000 last year when he suddenly noticed it moving alongside him.

Thankfully, there were no oncoming vehicles at the time, and Matt and his pregnant wife, Tia, escaped unscathed.

Matt, 37, said: “It was new last year and we kept it in storage at Scalm Park. We picked it up to take it for its yearly service and checked it was hitched up properly twice before we left.

"We set off at a leisurely pace towards Sherburn at about 40mph, and it was like an item off Top Gear. We heard a noise and the caravan went past us. Fortunately, thank God, nothing was coming in the opposite direction.”

The caravan’s safety mechanism activated the brakes, which caused it to veer off into a ditch by the side of the road. But the caravan was badly damaged, and it took three retrieval vehicles to pull it out of the ditch.

Matt, of Garforth, near Leeds, said: “There have been a few tears this end with my wife, Tia, who’s expecting in 19 weeks, and it’s put an abrupt halt to our family holiday.

“Life goes on though, you can’t moan forever.”