A COMPANY boss whose car suffered £6,500 damage when it was hit by Durham City's toll road bollard has branded the system dangerous.

Nichol de Casanove, managing director of a software company in Hertfordshire, fell foul of the bollard that rises from the ground to stop vehicles getting away without paying the £2 toll.

He says the device went into his car's engine compartment and that the impact led to the car's air bags exploding.

He says he suffered chest pains and that his wife had breathing difficulties and was badly left shocked.

He is calling on Durham County Council, which pioneered the scheme as the country's first toll road, to make it safer and to improve the instructions to motorists approaching the pay point.

There have been 111 incidents at the pay point since the charge was introduced in October 2002 to cut traffic in the historic peninsula area.

Mr de Casanove said he entered the charging zone inadvertently and was unaware of the toll and was following another car that had paid the toll when the bollard struck.

He said signs on the approach to the pay machine were 'not helpful and precise enough' and that the red and green light and instructions for payment were not facing oncoming drivers and could not be easily seen.

"Had the green light been ahead and had the signs been clear about the instructions. I would not have collided with the bollard.''

He added that he had never encountered a similar system before in Britain or Europe and while he agreed with the aim of the charge he thought system dangerous.

"They have CCTV cameras to monitor anybody not paying so what is the benefit of the bollard? The council told me a traditional barrier would not be appropriate for aesthetical reasons.''

Breakdown boss Fred Henderson, whose firm has turned out to recovered several of the damaged vehicles, said drivers were unable to see the bollard from their vehicles and that the lights should face oncoming traffic directly. He said that possibly an amber should be added to warn when the bollard was about to rise.

A county council spokesman said the authority was happy with scheme - which has cut traffic by 85 per cent and which has won several awards - but that it was 'not deaf to what people say.'

He said the 111 incidents were a tiny percentage of the 150,000 vehicles that had passed through the charge point and that 'the vast majority'' were caused by drivers trying to avoid the charge.