Grim weekend on the roads

It was a grim weekend on the roads in the West Midlands, with several serious accidents involving cars and motorcycles.

In one, a motorist scrambled free from his car which had overturned on a Walsall roundabout moments before it burst into flames.

The man watched as his Chrysler Voyager caught fire after hitting a lamp post near the Arboretum island.

The man had just filled up with petrol and was driving down Lichfield Road from the direction of Rushall.

The accident happened at 6am yesterday. Station officer Rob Woolley, at Walsall fire station, said: "He is just suffering from a bit of shock."

A Wolverhampton couple in their 70s coming back from holiday in Wales were taken to hospital after their car hit a tree near the Dinky's Diner lay-by on the A458 at Ford, near Shrewsbury, at 2.30pm on Saturday.

The couple, trapped in the wreckage of their car by branches of a tree for 25 minutes, were released by the firefighters.

The man was airlifted to the University Hospital of North Stafford with chest injuries. His wife also suffered chest pain and was taken by ambulance to hospital in Shrewsbury.

It is believed the couple were returning from the Welsh coast to their home in the Wolverhampton area.

A motorcyclist was airlifted to Selly Oak Hospital after being injured when he collided with a car on a dual carriageway near Lichfield.

The A38 northbound near Weeford Island was closed for two hours. Police are appealing for witnesses to an accident in Sedgley's High Street on Saturday. A red Peugeot 106 struck a pedestrian, a 38-year-old man from Cradley, who suffered head and leg injuries and today was "stable but serious".