Family faced death in car as tyre rolled off at 50mph

A WOMAN drove herself to a near-death experience after the car she'd owned for a matter of hours lost its wheel while she was driving.

Ceri-Ann Bevan, aged 25, from St Thomas, was driving to see her great-grandmother in Morriston Hospital and had her grandmother, auntie and 10-year-old cousin in the Renault Megane convertible car, which she had bought from car dealer Day's in Plasmarl that day, with her at the time of the incident earlier this month.

She says she and her family are lucky to be alive.

She said: "I picked the car up at about 4.20pm.

"I took some of my family and friends out and then I was due to go to Morriston Hospital to see my great-grandmother.

"I was driving on the Morriston bypass — and must have been going about 50 miles per hour — when the car just started shaking.

"I came up to a roundabout but I just had to go straight through.

"I cut up a man in an Audi, narrowly missed a wall, and my nan started screaming that she could see the tyre rolling down someone's drive.

"I managed to get it on the pavement and that's where it got stuck.

"There's still a four-inch gouge there now."

The incident happened only two-and-a-half hours after she drove the car off the forecourt.

"It's lucky we had the roof on because it would have been so easy to have flipped the car.

"We are all lucky to be alive.

"I hurt my back, my nan bruised her legs and had an asthma attack, and my cousin hurt her arm from holding on."

It is unclear what made the wheel come away from the car, and Miss Bevan has begun proceedings against Day's for the injuries and loss of earnings she has suffered as a result of not being able to perform her job as a carer.

Angry

The red Renault car, registration CP05YAF, was towed back to Day's, who returned Miss Bevan's deposit and cancelled her finance agreement.

Miss Bevan said she was angry to see that the repaired car had been advertised for sale once again on the website last week, though it was removed after the Evening Post contacted operations manager Mike Grant.

Mr Grant told the Post: "At the moment we are carrying out a thorough investigation into the circumstances (of the incident) and therefore are not in a position to make any further comment."