DRIVERS were left panicked in Troon last week as a man ended up driving down the wrong side of the road.

Locals were fearing for their lives on a busy bypass and were lucky to avoid a head on collision.

An elderly man was spotted coming onto the A78 near Troon the wrong way causing road users to break suddenly and alert the man of the danger on Friday morning, February 15.

One driver who witnessed the chaos said: "He was driving on the wrong side of the bypass and didn't seem to realise it. It was really dangerous. He had just turned on to the bypass after the roundabout so when I saw him luckily he wasn't going very fast.

"The man driving in front of me had to stop, causing me to stop suddenly, so I tried waving my hands out the window to try and get his attention."

The man eventually realised his error when he passed oncoming traffic and carried out a three-point-turn when he found space. But locals felt fortunate the incident didn't take place at a busier time of day as there would have been little opportunity to fix his cock-up and retreat to the correct side of the road.

The scare comes on the same week as South Ayrshire Police launched a Road Safety Campaign, and locals were reminded to alert the authorities of any concerns. Police Sergeant Jamie Lyall, Locality policing supervisor, said: “Road safety is a key local and national policing priority and it is important that we continue to support this.

“We will continue to pro-actively address community concerns and I would encourage communities to speak with us in person, via telephone or at community councils so that we can work together to tackle local issues”.