The terrifying moment a driver fatally drove the wrong way down the fast lane of the M4 near Newport has been caught on camera.
The experienced Vauxhall Astra driver drove for 2.8 miles at an average speed of 56mph in the outside lane before crashing head on into a black one series BMW at what police believe was a combined speed of 120mph.
The 38-year-old woman driving the Astra was pronounced dead at the scene and the 21-year-old driver of the BMW had to be cut out of his car and suffered life changing injuries.
He had desperately tried to brake and turn his car but the two cars hit each other in a head-on collision.
Now, the investigation into what happened is the subject of the latest episode of BBC Wales' The Crash Detectives.
The motorway had been particularly busy that February night in 2019 because it was the eve of Wales playing England in the Six Nations.
Police call handlers were inundated with other motorists reporting a car driving in the wrong direction on the eastbound carriageway just after junction 28 Tredegar Park.
The motorway cameras show several cars had to swerve to avoid crashing with the silver car.
One caller captured the moment of impact, he was heard telling a police 999 handler: "Hello. I'm travelling on the M4 west. On the opposite side there is a car travelling in the fast lane the wrong direction.2
He could then be heard saying: "Oh my God. Please move out of the way. They are still going. They are not going fast. I am doing 50mph. They have crashed. Head on, head on."
Despite the wave of desperate 999 calls, help wasn't able to arrive in time.
CCTV cameras didn't capture the moment of impact but there was footage of the car being driving in the wrong direction, and one driver caught it on the dashcam of their vehicle.
The moments before the crash were captured on the motorway cameras that line the carriageway around Newport.
This was the last time that the car was seen on the camera, six second before the impact. The driver of the lorry had flashed his lights to try and warn the car of the danger.
Gwent Police forensic crash investigator Dean Burnett went through the footage leading up to the crash and found that the driver of the Astra had had three opportunities to pull across to the hard shoulder but hadn't done so.
He also found that the car had hit the concrete barrier in the crash at some point during the impact, and Dean believes this saved other lives.
"If it has been any other type of barrier, I have no doubt in my mind that the Astra would have crossed the central reservation and landed on the opposite carriageway," he told the programme.
"Bearing in mind how busy it was that night, it doesn't bear thinking about it."
He added: "There's some serious near misses. You can only imagine what those drivers are going through. It's horrific.
"Motorways are statistically our safest roads - because we're all going in the same direction, so the last thing you expect is something travelling towards you."
As part of the investigation into how the woman was travelling in the wrong direction, he spoke to witnesses who had seen her making a left-hand turn from the intersection at junction 28 Tredegar Park.
She lived locally, so knew the layout, and when police officers followed her route they found it would have been very difficult to get the road layout wrong.
At an inquest into the woman's death, the coroner said it was hard to understand why the driver did not realise her mistake and pull over on to the hard shoulder.
But blood tests revealed she was two-and-a-half times the legal alcohol limit to drive and she had also taken cocaine.
Mr Burnett said: "I was under no illusions at all that that level of intoxication was a significant, if not the main contributory factor in this collision."
* Series 3 of The Crash Detectives is on BBC One Wales at 8.30pm on Tuesdays, or you can catch up on iPlayer.
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