RESIDENTS rushed from their homes after a car smashed into bollards, overturned, caught fire and skidded into several other vehicles in their street (Lynn Cox writes).

The crash happened at about 2am in Luton Road, Chatham on Saturday. As the car, a black Ford Escort, crashed it overturned and skidded into at least three other vehicles causing considerable damage to several of them. A Nissan Micra hit by the Escort and was virtually written off.

The driver of the vehicle ran off with the three other occupants, one of whom was a woman. The driver was later arrested by police.

The Fire and Rescue Service was called to put out the fire while police began an investigation.

The road was closed for about an hour-and-a-half while the police made their initial inquiries and recovery personnel cleared the road of smashed cars and debris. One homeowner who heard the commotion was Steph Gordon, who lives just a few doors away from the crash scene.

Mrs Gordon said: "I had been up watching a late night film and just heard one hell of a whoosh and a big smashing sound. I looked out the front room window and couldn't believe what I could see. There was a dark coloured car on its roof and flames were coming out of it. The bollards in the road were completely destroyed and several other cars had considerable damage to them.

"The car that was on its roof must have been travelling at considerable speed to cause so much damage. It was lucky no one was killed."

A spokesman for Medway Police said: "The driver of the offending vehicle was arrested at about 4am the same morning."