POLICE have released a footage of a crash which starkly illustrates the importance of wearing a seatbelt at all times.

Officers arrived at the scene of a crash at Peth Bank in Lanchester, near County Durham, to find a Fiat 500 upside down on its roof after it had had left the road and plunged into a deep ditch surrounded by trees – but the driver was relatively unscathed.

PC Martain Anderson, who responded to the crash on Saturday February 1, said: “You immediately brace yourself for the worst.

“When you see a small car upside-down like that, several feet down the side of a bank and buried in broken branches, it’s hard to imagine anybody getting out of it unharmed.”

But incredibly, the young woman driver had made it out of the vehicle, and aside from having a nasty shock and a cut on her hand, she was relatively unscathed.

PC Anderson said he had no doubt what had saved her from serious injury.

He said: “If she hadn’t had her seatbelt on, she would have been thrown all over inside that car.

“Some people don’t get why we make a big deal about seatbelts, but the reality is that they are there to save your life.”

After being checked over by PC Martain and calmed down by an attending family member, the driver explained that she had been dazzled by an oncoming vehicle with full beams on, and had lost control of her car on the twisty country road.

He said: “It doesn’t matter how experienced you are as a driver, how long your journey is going to be, or what the road conditions are.

“The outcome of this accident could have been very different, and I think the message is simple: wear your seatbelt.”