A FAMILY miraculously cheated death when a thug dropped a rock through their car windscreen as they drove along the A64 York bypass.

Jannette Wood, who was driving the J-registered Volvo 440 when the incident happened at about 10pm last night, had the luckiest escape of all.

A rock the size of a loaf came to rest in her lap after smashing through the screen as she drove under the bridge carrying Sim Balk Lane over the A64.

The steering wheel crumpled under the impact, the car's electrics blacked out and she was showered with glass - leaving her with minor facial injuries, grazed hands and bruised legs.

Mrs Wood, 38, an optical receptionist, of Hell Wath Grove, Ripon, said: "I can't believe the mentality of someone wanting to do this to somebody they don't even know.

"What if I had been driving a soft-topped car and they had dropped it a little bit later than they did, it would have come straight through the roof. It doesn't bear thinking about really."

Mrs Wood was driving home with her husband Raymond, 42, a taxi driver; daughter Aimee, 13, a pupil at St John Fisher RC School in Harrogate; and mother Margaret Gibling, 58, after visiting her sister Kathleen Sanderson in Fulford.

She said: "The rock crashed through the windscreen and made the steering wheel concertina into my lap. I automatically braked and my husband grabbed what was left of the steering wheel and steered the car into the side of the road."

"Luckily, I was in the inside lane anyway because I had only just pulled onto the road at Naburn and I was only doing about 50mph.

"It was just presence of mind for me to brake and my husband to try to steer because I was blinded at the time. I had glass in my eyes and in my hair."Her eyes were washed out at York District Hospital to remove slivers of glass.

Sergeant Colin Ventress, of York Police, said the Wood family had had a miraculous escape and appealed for the public's help in tracking down the person who endangered their lives.

"This was a stupid and potentially lethal act, which could have cost the Wood family their lives," he said.

"If the rock had struck the driver or any of her passengers directly it could have easily killed them. There was no warning of the attack whatsoever and it took place on a fast stretch of road - it was an absolutely crazy thing to do.

"Officers checked around the area and there were no pieces of sandstone in the vicinity - so it appears the person who committed this lunatic act has actually carried the rock to the bridge."

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