A LORRY DRIVER was seriously injured after being mown down by a car in front of horrified onlookers in a hit-and-run road rage attack in the centre of a Shropshire town.

The incident happened shortly after 5pm yesterday in King Street, Wellington, after the victim got out of his Volvo lorry to ask the car driver to reverse and let him pass on the narrow road.

Witnesses were left shocked and in tears when the driver of the car, which was a black Volkswagen Golf, suddenly accelerated and ran straight into the man before smashing into the lorry’s offside, mounting the pavement and racing off in the direction of the train station.

The lorry driver’s head smashed into the bonnet as he was thrown over the front of the car.

Shocked onlookers rushed to his aid as he lay semi-concious in the road and waited for an ambulance to arrive.

The 32-year-old lorry driver, who has not been named, suffered facial and pelvic injuries in what police today described as a “very shocking” incident.

Telford police spokesman Chris Ammonds said: “We are keen to talk to the driver of the black, Volkswagen Golf or to anybody who witnessed the incident or the run up to it. It was very shocking for the witnesses.”

West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman Steve Parry said the victim was taken to the Princess Royal Hospital where he remained today. His injuries were not believed to be life threatening.

One witness, who did not want to be named, said: “It was really horrible. There were people crying in the street. I managed to hold it together until I got home.”

The woman, who had been in a queue of traffic, behind the Volkswagen, said other witnesses had heard the lorry driver asking the car to back up.

She said: “The lorry driver was apparently being perfectly reasonable. The man in the car started swearing and then just drove at him.

“I heard a ‘bang, bang, bang’. It was the lorry driver’s head smashing into the bonnet.”

By Simon Hardy