Angry residents are demanding action to improve safety in a busy road where four teen-agers narrowly escaped serious injury when their car hit a wall.

They say someone will be killed if improvements are not introduced after the crash, when a car demolished a wall and then overturned in Burgess Hill. People living in Folders Lane, where the accident happened, described the road as a race track and said motorists regularly speed through the area.

All four occupants in the Rover car which crashed on Saturday evening were between 15 and 18. They were taken to the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath. Police said the 18-year-old driver suffered a broken arm but most of the injuries were cuts and whiplash.

A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said the car was travelling at high speed. Now residents want speed cameras or other traffic-calming measures introduced before someone is killed.

Pensioner Bess Ward told today how the Rover car tore into the wall at a house she was looking after for a friend. Mrs Ward, 66, was in the sitting room, minding the house for owner Bridget Smith, when the crash happened.

She told the Argus: "There was just an enormous bang and I thought perhaps it was a gas explosion. Then I saw people in the road and the car was on its side, so I dialled 999. I just checked that everyone was breathing and conscious, and the police and ambulance people got here very quickly. The car looked a bit mangled to say the least, and there were bits of it all over the place. It's absolutely amazing that no one was killed. How they managed to survive I don't know."

Mrs Ward said: "It's a very straight, long road, so people do tend to build up speed. I think it would be a good idea if they put in speed cameras. It's very dangerous, particularly at this end because you can't see the roundabout until you get over the hump of the railway bridge."

Harry Cramp, 64, said: "It's a racetrack, apart from between 8am and 9am when they all tail back and can't do any speed. The teenagers were not named by Sussex Police, who operate data protection guidelines.

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