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Twelve people have died in less than a week in accidents in England and Ireland involving cars being driven the wrong way on major roads, amid a social media trend for “wrong-side” driving.
Seven people, including two serving police officers, died early on Saturday in a crash on the main A66 road near Middlesbrough in northeastern England, police said.
Authorities are investigating the exact circumstances but said the collision followed a pursuit of a suspicious vehicle which ended up being driven the wrong way and colliding with a police car that was on the correct side of the road.
The incident followed a fatal crash in Ireland last Sunday in which five teenagers died. Their car had been travelling the wrong way on the M9 motorway west of Dublin when it collided head-on with another vehicle, leaving four people in the second car, including a child, seriously injured.
