VIDEO: Police escort mobility scooter rider off motorway

Stunned motorists watched in horror as the elderly mobility scooter user took a ride along the motorway’s northbound carriageway after the officer attended and escorted him from the stretch between junction 31 at Aston and the M18 interchange at junction 32.

A passenger in haulier Steve Saxon’s lorry wasted no time in filming the jaw-dropping scene as they passed by in the midday traffic.

Steve, owner of Pontefract-based S. E. Saxon Transport, said: “I’ve been driving lorries since 1986 and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite as bizarre as that. I don’t think I ever will again.

“I don’t know where he thought he was off to, but he clearly hadn’t got there yet. He had no shopping in his basket.”

Steve was carrying a wide load along the stretch of M1, which is currently affected by roadworks and subject to a 50mph speed limit, when he spotted the mobility scooter and police motor-cycle approaching.

Steve said it appeared that the man had joined the M1 at junction 31 and been turned around by the police officer en-route, adding: “He was steering with one hand and looked completely unfazed. We just keep watching it back and laughing to ourselves.”

A police spokeswoman confirmed that the force had received a “number of calls” about the 85-year-old mobility scooter rider’s progress down the hard shoulder and said that his family had been contacted following the incident.