Traffic was gridlocked for two hours after a lorry overturned across a dual carriageway.

A woman who witnessed the crash described it as like "a stunt from a movie".

The articulated truck drove down Halewick Lane, Lancing, towards the A27 and hit the pavement before flipping on its side across the road.

The cab jack-knifed and the two parts of the lorry were wrenched apart, with the trailer skidding towards the central reservation at the Hill Barn traffic lights.

The cab came to rest just feet away from a row of cars displayed in a showroom.

Witness Anne Findon, said: "We were sitting at the lights when a lorry came round the corner, hit the kerb and went up into the air.

"It flew through the air in a cloud of dust and smoke, hit the central reservation and just disintegrated."

Anne, who works in Brighton, said the accident seemed to happen in slow motion.

She said: "I was frightened but we were on the other side of the road so I didn't think it was going to hit us."

The driver walked away unscathed and no one else was injured.

Another witness, Wayne Edwards, said one car was just feet away from being crushed by the cab while a motorcyclist had to speed past the carriage as it was about to land on him.

Sompting parish councillor Martin Horner said he had been expecting an accident of this kind for years.

Mr Horner, who lives in Halewick Lane, has been campaigning against the Sompting waste transfer station for ten years.

The lorry, believed to have been driven by a local man, was carrying rubbish from the tip when the incident happened.

Mr Horner said: "We get at least 30 articulated lorries thundering past here every day and up to 630 vehicle movements to and from the tip a week.

"This is a residential area and it was never designed to have that kind of traffic moving through it. This was an accident waiting to happen.

"If the lorry had crashed further up near Meadow View, where all the children play, I dread to think what would have happened. It's a miracle no one was killed."

A spokesman for Worthing fire station said: "It was such a big crash it was lucky the lorry didn't land on a car in the other lane."

Diversions were set up within a couple of hours of the crash, which happened on the westbound carriage on Saturday morning, but tailbacks stretched as far back as the Southwick tunnel.