I genuinely thought that 10pm on Saturday, March 23 was to be my last moment alive.

I was calmly waiting in my stationary car for the oncoming traffic to clear so that I could turn right into a side street off Charminster Road when suddenly, around the bend, came an ambulance overtaking that line of traffic.

It was heading straight for me on my side of the road at such break-neck speed I barely had time to steel myself for what I thought was going to be head-on crash. But, at the very last moment, a small gap appeared in the row of cars which allowed the driver to swerve into it, missing my vehicle by inches.

Afterwards I was shaking like a leaf and felt physically sick, and the question occurred to me, not for the first time: ‘Why oh why, both day and night, do emergency vehicles – both ambulances and police cars, use this route at all?’ Consider for a moment the nature of the busy Charminster Road.

It has roundabouts and crossroads, bus stops, loading and unloading commercial vehicles, cyclists and near-suicidal pedestrians, traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, parking and parked cars, many side streets that feed into it, and quite often, road works.

And yet, almost parallel to this road is the Wessex Way (A338) which is a two-lane, dual carriageway, suffering none of the above impediments and which leads straight to Cooper Dean roundabout – adjacent to the hospital. It has to be much, much safer and I would have thought, a quicker option.

Do we have to wait for someone, like myself, to be killed before this is considered?

And, as a bonus, the absence of frequent sirens along the road would also be very welcome.

BD SYLVESTER, Charminster Road, Bournemouth