A NEWPORT driver said he was lucky to escape being crushed by a scrap car that fell off a lorry onto the road.

The incident involved a lorry carrying several scrapped cars as it approached junction 28 on the A467 Forge Road yesterday.

A scrap vehicle clipped the underside of a bridge and was knocked off the lorry, as reported in later editions of yesterday's Argus.

Steve Clifford, 48, a van driver of Rogerstone, was driving near the lorry when the scrap fell off at around 11.20am.

He said: "As the lorry came round the bend I saw a black shape fall off the top of it. I had to brake hard and drive around it. It gave me a real shock.

"But if there had been any car in that lane, or a cyclist, then it would've done a hell of a lot of damage. Someone could've been killed. It must have weighed well over a ton and fell off the top of a high-sided lorry. Luckily there weren't that many cars around."

The lorry driver pulled over and drivers were forced to weave between the parked lorry and the scrap wreckage, causing tailbacks up Forge Road.

Police officers who attended the scene noticed scratches on the underside of the bridge where the scrap car had struck it. They said the damage looked superficial but called in highways inspectors to check. Police left the scene at 12.10pm. A rescue vehicle was called to collect the wreckage.

A spokeswoman for Gwent Police said: "Nobody else was involved and nobody was hurt. The roads were kept open."