Heart-stopping video shows van swerving onto grass and almost on its side after car pulls out of junction “without looking”

HEART-STOPPING video shows a van swerving onto a grass verge to avoid crashing head first into a car that pulls out of a junction “without looking”.

The van driver skillfully manoeuvred around the large red hatchback after it attempted to join the road without looking left.

The white van had been overtaking a lorry just moments before but the car driver appeared to have pulled out of the junction without looking left.

The short clip was captured last week  on the A28 in Aughnacloy, Northern Ireland.

The shocking footage was shared online to Twitter on Sunday, where it was retweeted by broadcaster Jeremy Vine.

The dramatic footage begins with the red car leaving Caledon Road and approaching the junction.

The van can be seen rocketing down the road trying to overtake a slow moving lorry.

The red car continues to creep forward at the junction and begins driving on the road, thinking it is safe to merge.

The driver is suddenly forced to stop with three quarters of the car on the main road as a van throttles towards it.

Before this, the van driver can be seen starting to overtake the lorry and is driving along the opposite side of the road forcing it to manoeuvre around the car.

The van driver then skillfully at speed steers onto the grass and around the red car narrowly missing it and the Cassy’s Salmon LTD can be read on the van.

The two left wheels can be seen lifting off the ground from the sheer speed that the van is travelling in.

Refusing the slow down, the van continues to drive along a pavement right beside a house, which it also misses colliding with.

The red car that seems unphased by the incident then merges onto the road and continues tootling along.

The clip has been seen by over 246,000 people and has ignited a debate on who was in the right and who was in the wrong.

Vine wrote about the video: “My dad always told me, ‘when you’re turning left, look left as well as right.’ And this is why he said it.”

@IsMyBTBroadban1 wrote under the post: “A vehicle on the main road has right of way – always.

“The van was overtaking in a perfectly legal way (if within the speed limit) as the main road has normal hatched lines. The vehicle on the side road should only enter the main road when safe to do so. They are at fault here.”

@kendowling wrote: “100% the red Berlingo at fault in my opinion. He only looked right when entering the road and didn’t check the left side.

“Van driver didn’t seem to be going very fast or doing anything wrong.”

@LesorLel said: “He was clearly trying to overtake the flat bed truck at a junction, red car had every right to be where it was.”

@safc4ever added: “If the red car had stopped at the lines, the overtake would have stayed on the road. BUT… you never overtake at a junction.

“So the overtaker is as much to blame for the incident. I just hope nobody got hurt (not knowing what happened out of shot).

@Contae_Aontrama wrote: “You don’t overtake at a junction. Red car obviously only looked to his right because why would you even look left. White van is in the wrong and clearly speeding.”

A spokesman for the PSNI said: “Police received a report on Sunday, January 17, of an incident involving a white Ford Transit van and a red Citreon Multitasker, which occurred at the junction of the Caledon Road and the Derrycourtney Road in Aughnacloy. Enquiries are ongoing.”