A HAMPSHIRE motorist is lucky to be alive after his car ploughed into a brick wall just inches from a house.

Shocked neighbours came rushing out of their homes when the Toyota Corolla smashed through the garden wall of the house in Cadnam, which sent bricks hurtling through the air.

Miraculously the 24-year-old driver walked away from the mangled wreckage with only minor injuries ater the crash which witnesses say sounded like “a jet going overhead”.

Now residents, still shaken from their ordeal, say he is “lucky to be alive” and that more must be done to improve safety on the hazardous stretch.

The drama unfolded just before 7.45pm on Friday when the motorist, who was driving along the A336 Southampton Road, lost control of his vehicle close to the Coach and Horses pub.

The car completely demolished the wall before coming to rest in the middle of the road.

Neighbours rushed out to help the driver from the badly damaged vehicle before paramedics treated him for minor injuries at the scene.

The couple living there were unharmed but spent the weekend clearing away the shattered bricks, some of which landed inches from their front door and smashed the windows of their car parked in the drive.

Next-door neighbour Angela Buckingham, 53, who heard the commotion from her lounge, said: “I heard a loud rumbling and the whole room shook.

“I ran out of the room because I thought a vehicle was going to hit my house.

“We looked out and saw lights flashing and people gathering around and dragging a young man out of the car.

“He was distressed and the lady living there was distressed.”

She claimed there are at least three crashes a year on the stretch of road which has been reduced from a 60mph to 30mph speed limit, adding: “So many lorries and cars come past and there is the turning for the pub.

“We are on a bend here and I’ve always said one day a car is going to end up in our lounge.”

Ginge Kinley, 54, who lives nearby, came rushing out of the pub to help direct traffic, while an off-duty nurse checked over and comforted the driver.

He said: “He was stunned, shocked and quite tearful, as you would expect.

“He’s so lucky to be alive because if he’d hit the telegraph pole he would have been dead.

“It’s a very busy road.”

Another resident, who asked not to be named, said: “It sounded like a jet going overhead.

“Everyone ran out into the street.”

South Central Ambulance Service atended the scene.

A spokesman said the the driver's injuries were slight and he did not have to be taken to hospital.

No arrests were made and police directed traffic until the vehicle was recovered from the carriageway nearly two hours later.