TWELVE people have died in less than a week in England and Ireland in crashes involving vehicles travelling the wrong way on major roads, as authorities warn about a social media-driven trend linked to such driving.
Seven people, including two serving police officers, died early Saturday in a collision on the A66 near Middlesbrough in northeastern England.
Police are investigating the circumstances of the crash, which followed a pursuit of a suspicious vehicle. Authorities said the vehicle was driven the wrong way before colliding with a police car travelling on the correct side of the road.
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The crash came less than a week after five teenagers were killed in Ireland on Sunday.
The teenagers' car had been travelling the wrong way on the M9 motorway west of Dublin when it collided head-on with another vehicle. Four people in the second car, including a child, were seriously injured.
The deaths come as authorities have raised concerns over a social media-driven trend involving vehicles being driven on the wrong side of roads.
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Following Sunday's crash, Ireland's taoiseach (prime minister) Micheal Martin said it was the latest in a series of incidents involving vehicles travelling on the wrong side of motorways.
"There can be no tolerance for this reckless behaviour that we have seen on our roads recently. It must stop," he said.
Police chief Justin Kelly said the crash followed a similar collision on Dublin's M50 motorway and warned that "what makes this reckless behaviour even more appalling is that in some cases it is being done for social media".
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The M50 crash, which happened a week earlier, involved a stolen vehicle carrying teenagers that was driven the wrong way and caused multiple serious injuries.
In another incident earlier in August, footage filmed inside a stolen car while it was being pursued by police also emerged on social media.
(With inputs from agencies)
FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past a poster displaying a message of defiance to the terror attack of May 22 at the Manchester Arena, in Manchester, northwest England on May 31, 2017. (Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images)
