A HAIRDRESSER ensured customers escaped injury after a runaway car ploughed into his salon.

The accident happened at about 9.50am yesterday when a green Ford Ranger 4x4 rolled down Newgate, in Barnard Castle, County Durham.

A number of accidents were reported across the region yesterday, with the icy conditions mainly to blame.

The car destroyed a traffic bollard, mounted the cobbles and narrowly missed the town’s Market Cross, before crossing the pavement and crashing into Saks hairdressers.

At the time, there were three staff and one customer in the salon, all of whom were uninjured thanks to assistant manager Andrew Shaw.

“I had just finished cutting a customer’s hair and had my back to the front door, but in the mirror I could look back on myself and up the road towards Newgate,” said Mr Shaw.

“I saw the car when it was on the crest of the bank. I saw it coming towards us then realised it didn’t have anyone in it so got everyone to the back of the salon.

“It made quite a crash and sent shards of glass about three-quarters of the way into the salon, but everyone was okay.”

Police said the woman driver had been trying to get into the car when it started to roll.

Meanwhile, the air ambulance came to the aid of a motorist after several cars were involved in a pile-up.

Just before 9am, a number of vehicles travelling along Greenfields Road, in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, skidded, colliding with each other and crashing into parked cars.

The 38-year-old female driver of a Fiat Punto was taken to The University Hospital of North Tees, in Stockton, with minor injuries.

In Woodhouse Lane, Bishop Auckland, a resident came to the rescue of a bus in danger of sliding down the road into a line of traffic.

Black ice on the road meant that the bus was stranded, so the driver evacuated his passengers.

However, the road was also being used as a diversion after a minor accident on Proudfoot Drive.

A queue of traffic had formed behind the bus and the driver was concerned about releasing the brake in case the vehicle slid back.

Before emergency services could arrive, a resident spread grit on the road allowing the bus to pull away.

At about 9.45am, the icy conditions were blamed for an accident involving a Ford Fiesta and a panel van near South Church Enterprise Park, and an Arriva bus on the number 55 route into Durham City collided with a central island off the A177, near High Shincliffe, at about 9.15am.

A woman was also airlifted to hospital with back and neck injuries after a head-on collision.

Her Mini Cooper was in collision with a Nissan on Underlands Lane, in Melmerby, near Ripon, North Yorkshire, at about 8.30am.