POLICE have hit out at motorists who took pictures on their mobile phones while driving in front of officers at the scene of a lorry crash on the A31.
As reported by the Daily Echo, the lorry crashed into a footbridge on the A31 near Ashley Heath on Thursday afternoon.
The A31 was closed both ways for a time while emergency services dealt with the incident with motorists urged to avoid the area.
Read more: A31 open again and repairs completed after lorry crashed into footbridge
While many motorists waited patiently during the closure, some motorists and pedestrians took a “needless risk” to capture photos of the crash scene with some even ignoring a police cordon in a bid to take a photo.
In a post on social media, Dorset Traffic Cops said: “We should also say a huge thanks to those drivers who waited behind emergency vehicles whilst we got things in a safe order so we could open a lane - very hard to wait with little information coming through so thank you for doing it so well.
“Unfortunately, some weren’t as helpful as an abundance of other drivers & pedestrians acted unusually in the quest to capture this incident for themselves - driving whilst using a phone past a collision scene covered in police officers & moving under police cordon tape to photograph under a 25ft shipping container are just two examples.”
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“Such behaviour exposes the individual plus emergency workers to needless risk so if you really need a photo, find an alternative - it’s really not worth someone dying for.”
The spokesperson added: “Needless to say, this did and continues to cause some disruption on this stretch of road but after extensive work by our independently nominated recovery operator, the vehicle has been recovered to allow repair work to begin.”
“Thankfully, despite the significant damage suffered, the driver was able to leave with minor injuries. They’ll be able to help us with our investigation to understand how this happened in no time at all."
The eastbound carriageway of the road was closed for several hours following the crash.
The road has now been reopened.
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