A Scottish man was left terrified after being kidnapped by his electric car. Brian Morrison was driving home from work on Sunday, October 1, when his MG ZS EV suffered a “catastrophic malfunction”, forcing him to ram into a police van to come to a stop.
According to a BBC report, the 53-year-old realised he had lost control of the car when it became stuck at 30mph. Morrison tried slowing down as the car approached a roundabout and failed to do so.
“I realised something was wrong when I was coming up to a roundabout and went to slow down but it didn't do it,” he said.
“Then I heard a loud grinding noise that sounded like brake pads, but because it was such a new car I knew it couldn't be a problem with them.
“I managed to get around the roundabout going at about 30mph and then had a long road ahead of me, so I assumed it would stop without me accelerating - but it didn't,” the Glasgow man said.
His car, he realised, was stuck at 30mph. He could not jump out as he has mobility issues. “It might not sound like it is very fast, but when you have no control over the speed and you're completely stuck inside, it's terrifying,” Morrison said.
The 53-year-old called his wife and then the police for assistance as he was worried he might crash into a roundabout or – worse still – into a pedestrian. “The car was just running away on its own, there was nothing I could do,” he said.
“When I dialled 999, they sent police to help and put some engineers on the line to try and solve the problem, and they were asking if it was a self-driving car,” said Morrison, adding that even the call handlers had never experienced anything like this before and had no idea how to help him.
Eventually, police sent three vehicles to Morrison’s location. Driving next to his MG ZS EV, a cop asked the Glasgow man to throw his electronic key into their van. They tried to shut the engine off forcibly, but nothing could stop the car.
Officers decided to let Morrison crash into their van to bring his runaway vehicle to a halt.
“Eventually I came up to a roundabout which slowed the car down to about 15mph and the police van was waiting for me on the other side,” the terrified driver recalled. “I went into the back of the van while it was moving, before they put on the brakes to stop me.”
“We have been urgently trying to make contact with Mr Morrison so that his vehicle can be fully inspected by our engineering team. We take this matter very seriously and now that contact has been made, we will be making every effort to resolve matters quickly and comprehensively for him,” MG Motor UK said in a statement accessed by the Daily Mail.
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