Police eventually brought the car to a stop on the M62 (Image: North West Motorway Police)
A terrified driver has revealed the horrific experience of realising the breaks on his Jaguar had failed at a shocking 90mph. Nathan Owen was driving the electric vehicle on the M62 near Manchester, with police officers chasing the out of of control car on the busy motorway.
The drama began as the Jaguar I-PACE car broke down and started racing uncontrollably down the motorway towards Eccles, reaching terrifying speeds of 90mph.
Nathan, who is 31 and lives in Bolton, says he was worried for his life during these frightening moments – as he claims it wasn’t the first time he had trouble with his car on the highway.
Nathan passed along his scary tale to the Mail Online, explaining that he’d been returning from his new work as a support helper for kids in crisis in Ormskirk. It was roughly 2:30pm, and Nathan attempted to pass another car when the dreadful moment happened.
Nathan, originally from North Wales, shared: “The car literally just started speeding up. I couldn’t press the brakes.”
He said the speedometer was close to hitting 100mph, going from high 90s to 100, reports the Manchester Evening News.
Terrified, he said: “It came up on the dashboard saying there was a battery malfunction in my car. I kept trying to press the brakes but nothing was happening.”
In his desperation, Nathan did the next best thing: “So the next thing I thought I should do was call 999 and tell them what was happening.”
Traffic on the M62 as a closure was put in place (Image: Highways England)
Mr Owen said: “The car was in its own world – it just had no brakes. The worst thing about it is that it’s happened before.”
He explained: “In the back of my mind, I was thinking I’m going to end up crashing the car, I’m going to kill myself or I’m going to kill an innocent person on the roads.”
For the next 35 minutes, Mr Owen was surrounded by police cars. Merseyside Police and Greater Manchester Police officers used special moves to stop his car.
He shared: “It was just scary I was just hitting the back of this police officer.
“I was hitting them at about 90mphs. I was still talking to the operator, and I was worried. I was thinking I could potentially kill myself hitting this police officer at 90, or I could kill him if he loses control.”
Every time he hit the police car, it swayed from side to side. Mr Owen said: “The police officers said they’d never come across this before and coming down the hard shoulder and the police being behind me, it was like something out a film.
“It was horrible, I was in the fast lane, police car right in front of me, cars alongside me, normal passengers were just staring at me. I felt like a criminal like in a big police chase, that’s how it felt. It felt like Grand Theft Auto.”
The Jaguar finally stopped when it ran out of miles. Mr Owen said: “I had 10 miles, 5 miles and then it said on the screen zero miles stop the car and then the car started gently slowing down and going to zero.”
“The police were saying on the phone they are going to drive off a bit further and they will stop and then I can roll into the back of the police car and stop the vehicle. I went into their car a few times, that was what was panicking me the most, I’ve never done that kind of before, I’ve never had a crash before.”
“Hitting the back of the police car, I was panicking about myself and the police officer in case I hit him too hard or he loses control.”
After the scary event ended, Mr Owen said he ‘froze’. He also mentioned a similar thing happened to him on December 23.
“I was driving at 3am in the morning after I finished one of my previous jobs, it happened exactly the same, I had no control of the vehicle”, he explained. “At the time, it did speed up to about 120mph, so it was going pretty quick.”
“I ended up phoning the police, the same how I did with this one. I managed to get the car into neutral after me pressing the buttons on the side of the I-Pace.”
“It didn’t work this time but last time I managed to get it in neutral so the car ended up stopping with the help of the police in front of me and behind me slowing down as well. The car then got recovered to Jaguar Land Rover in Bolton and within 24 hours I got a phone call saying they looked over the car and the cars fine and I should pick it up.”
He further reported that he had a scare on a motorway last April, just a month after buying the car, when the battery died. “I was driving the vehicle and I had about 100 miles still left and I was literally just driving about 20 miles and I lost pretty much all that charge and car stopped in motorway and I got recovered – it took about 8 hours to recover the vehicle”, he revealed.
“Everything literally just shuts off. The wheels clamp up because its electric, I can’t take the handbrake off.”
He vowed not to buy again from the same brand or another electric car. He added: “I just know I’ll never be getting into this car again. I just wish that I would have got help with it the first time I had the problems, and I didn’t just get given back the car.”
Jaguar Land Rover declared that they are treating the investigation into yesterday’s scary incident as a priority. This nerve-racking episode occurred between junction 11 for Birchwood and junction 12 for Eccles on the motorway.
All lanes were closed for a short while with traffic stopped as police responded to the incident. Two lanes later reopened, with a further two closed, causing major delays of almost an hour and congestion backed up ahead of rush hour.
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