A father and his young daughter had a terrifying brush with death when their Aston Martin sports car was completely wrecked by a massive pothole on a rural Wiltshire road. The incident, which occurred as they returned from a family day out, has sparked urgent calls for road repairs and highlighted the dangers of deteriorating infrastructure.
A Day Out Turns Into a Nightmare
Andrew McQueen, a 52-year-old furniture designer from Tetbury, Gloucestershire, was driving his beloved Aston Martin DB9 home from a visit to Peppa Pig World with his 10-year-old daughter Poppy. Travelling along the A346 through Savernake Forest near Marlborough, Wiltshire, their journey took a sudden and violent turn.
"We had such a lovely day together and were on our way home when I saw these craters – you couldn’t even call them potholes – in the road," Mr McQueen recounted. "There wasn’t just one, there were loads of them in one big clump all over the road for a few hundred yards."
Catastrophic Impact at 40mph
By the time Mr McQueen spotted the hazardous road surface, it was too late to avoid it. Travelling at approximately 40mph, he attempted to brake and steer away, but the sheer extent of the damage made evasion impossible.
"I had no real route to get around it, so when we hit the crater I was trying to brake and turn at the time but it was useless as I just would have hit another one," he explained. "There was a gigantic bang which made the whole car shudder and we were zig-zagging a couple hundred yards down the road with no brakes because they had been ripped out."
The impact was so severe that the entire front wheel of the Aston Martin was torn off, likely writing off what Mr McQueen described as his "dream car." The vehicle, which he had coveted since childhood and held many cherished memories, was left irreparably damaged.
Miraculous Escape and Emotional Aftermath
Miraculously, both Mr McQueen and his daughter survived the harrowing incident without serious injury, though Mr McQueen hurt his shoulder struggling with the steering wheel. They were forced to wait for hours in the dark for a mechanic to recover them and their stricken vehicle.
"Thankfully the car behind us stopped - we were lucky to be alive because we could have hit oncoming traffic or a tree," Mr McQueen reflected, adding that the realisation of their narrow escape only hit him later that evening.
What angered him most, however, was seeing his daughter's emotional distress. "What made me angry was when [Poppy] started crying in the back of the car on the way home," he said. "She said to me that it was 'all her fault because she made us go to Peppa Pig World' and [said that] now my Aston Martin was written off and it was my dream car."
Council Response and Calls for Action
In the wake of the incident, Wiltshire Council has announced it will undertake emergency repair works on the affected stretch of the A346. Martin Smith, cabinet member for Highways at Wiltshire Council, stated: "I am very sorry to hear about this incident. We are aware of the condition of the A346 and will be carrying out emergency repair works in the area where this incident occurred."
Mr McQueen, determined to prevent similar accidents, has taken action by emailing his local MP and pressuring the council to address the pothole problem more comprehensively. "The more people that know about it the better so they can avoid the road and get it fixed," he asserted. "It doesn’t matter what car you’ve got - we all pay our road tax so why haven’t they looked after these roads?"
While relieved that his daughter was physically unharmed, Mr McQueen emphasised the potential for tragedy. "I was more concerned with getting my daughter back to school and I’m just happy we are all safe," he said. "But it would have been a different matter if Poppy had got hurt!"
The incident serves as a stark reminder of the critical importance of road maintenance and the very real dangers that potholes pose to all motorists, regardless of their vehicle.
